Saturday, April 16, 2011

Retreat!

This morning, I am heading up to Pinchot State Park for my critique group's spring writing retreat. It's an event I look forward to, even when the weather promises to keep us all inside the cabins instead of out looking for inspiration among the trees.

For the first time in a long time, though, I have only one project that I am working on, and I'm finding myself a little intimidated by the large block of time that will be available to me. As a wife and mother with a full time job, I've become accustomed to working in small chunks of time, and I find myself wondering if I'll be able to repave the neural pathways that allow me to concentrate on one thing for hours at a time.

And then my blog rode in to the rescue. Since I took a blog workshop from Sarah Reinhard at the online Catholic Writers Conference a few weeks ago, I've found that my stream of blog topics has widened, and that ideas pop into my head on a more regular basis. When I rememembered that I have a blog to fall back on as "break" so that I don't waste the rare and precious gift of extended time to write, I suddenly felt less anxious, and more sure that my fellow writers wouldn't rally to kick me out of the cabin because I wouldn't stop talking when they were trying to write.

Wishing you a sunny writing day inside despite the weather outside. I know I'm looking forward to mine.

5 comments:

Susan Gourley/Kelley said...

Have great fun at the retreat. I would love to do something like that.
I prepare blog posts when I'm stuck on a project.

Sarah Reinhard said...

Happy writing! Sounds heavenly!

Cate Masters said...

Sounds like a luxury to me! I'd love to attend a writer's retreat. Maybe the SW should organize one... :)

Lisa Lawmaster Hess said...

It was lovely! I came home earlier than I expected to, but enjoyed both the writing and the company while I was there. Finished one chapter, started another, but never did get to the blogs :-/

We organized this retreat at the suggestion of one of our members after they came back from a conference totally frustrated. We rent two cabins at Pinchot for the weekend, eat lunches and dinners together and do our own thing in between. It is wonderful....and wonderfully productive!

Laurie J. Edwards said...

Boy, do I miss that! Can you keep me posted on when the next one's scheduled? I'd love to do one of them again sometime. And now that my schedule's flexible--ha!ha!--I could plan to come.