So I’m sitting here on a leather recliner in the mountains in an air conditioned cabin that has a chandelier. No, really. A fancy one that could be at a posh hotel’s lobby in another life. The bathroom sinks have a swan motif on the faucet that echoes the swan motif on the light fixture. There’s a ‘love tub’ in the master bedroom. Yes, with two pillows and jets.
I thought it was going to be a back to nature experience. But it’s more like back to “copper backsplash behind the tiled counter top beside the built in double oven” experience.
Ahhh. This is so much better than being in nature. (For writing, I mean.)
I like being outside. It’s great. But for a writers retreat it’s honestly great to have lovely pine trees just outside my mullioned windows that I can see from the comfort of being next to the big screen TV. (Which is turned off, I assure you, until we watch another Austen film tonight.)
Thirty women, four days, more quiet than you could even imagine from a group like this. When it’s over, I’d like to do a page count or a word count to see if we can gauge the overall productivity of this.
Three years ago at the ANWA retreat, I came in need of a new project. I’d finished one and was ready to start fresh. I had about six ideas I was juggling, trying to flesh out in outlines. The one I settled on (to my tremendous surprise) was Big in Japan, a story of an accidental blond sumo wrestler in need of a girlfriend. That week in a much-less-posh cabin netted me about 20 pages of the beginning of the manuscript.
So far, since yesterday I’ve edited about 50 pages of my current WIP. Ideas for fixes to the plot are just popping up and onto the pages. It’s pretty exciting! And tonight we’re having homemade spaghetti. The thing was a screaming deal at only $95 per person for the whole week. No, seriously. If you’re not in ANWA and you qualify to be in it, what the heck is stopping you?
Okay, now back to my stolen art and emeralds. Bye, gang. See you when I’ve finished my 100-page edit goal.
