Inkhaven 2 retrospective

I just finished doing the second iteration of Inkhaven, the 30-day writing residency where you have to write a blog post everyday or you have to leave. I enjoyed it a lot; I had a lot of fun both from blogging and from being at Lighthaven and doing the various activities available to me at Lighthaven.

Initially I thought Inkhaven would be like a Lighthaven conference, but for a whole month! It wasn’t exactly like that: there were less people (so less opportunities for talking) and more time spent writing and thinking, but it was kinda vaguely close in spirit to that!

Things I liked

• I had a room right in the middle of Lighthaven (right across from the entrance to building A) that was pretty cheap (US$60/night) for the Bay Area. It didn’t have a bathroom though, so I had head outside and go to either go to the bathrooms by Eigen Hall or building A. I thought this would be more of a problem than it actually ended up being; it turns out not being able to pee at night isn’t really a problem for me.
• It was really nice being at Lighthaven; it’s such a great conference venue!

Problems that aren’t my fault

• They rejected Celeste from Celeste-land even though she’s better than me. I have no idea why?
• The curtains on my room didn’t black-out light very well. They switched them to different curtains, which also didn’t work very well.,
• Like every other room at Lighthaven has a whiteboard on the door, but mine didn’t for some reason?
• The rooms for the CFAR venue cost more than the rooms at Lighthaven; it wasn’t clear to me that this was the case to me until the week before I went.

Problems that are my fault

• My sleep schedule got messed up a lot, and I ended up frequently going to bed around 2-3AM.
• There were a few days in the last week of the event where I felt a lot less energetic about writing.
• I didn’t really use the writing advisors at all.
• I should have done more socializing with the other residents.
• I didn’t get out of Lighthaven enough; it’s a great place but I wish I went to SF more and met more people outside of Lighthaven.

Weekend getaway

Lighthaven was being used for a conference (ControlConf) for the third weekend of Inkhaven, so most went to the CFAR Bodega Bay venue for that weekend. I really enjoyed this trip: I was able to make much closer connections to the other Inkhaven residents, and it was fun going to the beach and going to the Pacific ocean.

Cost

It cost me about US$5k to attend Inkhaven:

• Program fee: US$2000
• Housing at Lighthaven: US$1948.80
• Flight to SF: CA$409¹
• Food from Forkable: US$273.86
• Food at Bodega Bay: US$120
• Housing at Bodega Bay: US$363 (decided by 7th price auction)

There’s also the opportunity cost of not working during that time, which is harder for me to estimate. Overall I think Inkhaven was really worth the money for me!

Conclusion

I really liked Inkhaven; it was a lot of fun! I think it was probably the best thing I could have done this month. You should probably consider applying for it when they run the next iteration of it.