I could spend hours, days, weeks talking your ear off about the wonderfulness of the retreat I went on this past March, the inaugural Aspiring Writers Workshop hosted by Madcap Retreats, but for right now, I’m going to focus on one piece of the wonderfulness: the creation of Band of Dreamers.

Inspired by The Merry Sisters of Fate, my writing partner Jenna and I decided to write a weekly short story based on a long list of prompts we created. I had never written a short story before, and the i...