Rockin' the Riter's Retreat!!!

 I spent five days at a writer's retreat 

(Yes, I know how to spell writer!!!)

This is me, sitting outside on a beautiful morning on the porch of the Log Cabin we stayed in in central Iowa.

Trust me, this place has NOTHING IN COMMON with a true, frontier log cabin. It was such a nice place. Beautiful house, lots of space, very comfortable...not counting that Erica Vetsch started coughing from something she was reacting to. But I felt fine!!!

Our hostess was Dawn Ford from Iowa.

Here she is with Erica Vestch. We were each given a meal to be in charge of. 

Dawn is actually making coffee, but Erica is faking that she's cooking.

Next is Nebraska author (like me) Kathy Geary Anderson.

Cathy just had her first book release, The Trouble with Jenny, and it was so fun to talk about!

She's working on the next book already.

Our fifth writer was Iowa author Shari Barr. She left a day early and as you might predict, I didn't get my camera out until she was long gone. But she had fun writing and then off she went, something about a daughter getting married in the near future.

And we had a guest come by one day. Iowa author Erin Stevenson. 

Her latest book is Sisters Ever After, book #1 of a new series.

I wrote as many words as I could for five days, two of them mostly travel days, and got 13,000 words down. 

I finished one book and began another.

I need to go through the book I finished and do revisions but I didn't want to spend the retreat doing that. I wanted WORD COUNT!!!

I couldn't hold a candle to Erica and her TWENTY THOUSAND WORDS!!!

We also brainstormed for a while each night, if someone wanted to. And someone always did?

The one drawback was no wifi. That surprised us but we had a little lead time for it. Still, I wanted wifi. I'm pretty hooked!

Erica is the one who mentioned how often we, as historical authors, look up words to see if they existed during our book's era. Pro-tip...Shenanigans DID exist in 1870...but not by much. 1850s.

We were on our own for breakfast--which I mostly skipped. And lunch, which was either leftovers or turkey sandwiches. And we had a nice snack counter which, no matter how much we ate, seemed to grow more plentiful with each passing day.

Then we signed up for dinner. Which, four days before, I had to ask if we'd ever discussed dinner. At which point Erica told me what I'd agreed to make and when and Dawn showed me the Google document where I'd filled in my meal plan.

Sigh.

Swiss Cheese Brain is my superpower!

It was wonderful. Dawn Ford has arranged a writer's retreat before, and I have to say she's really got a knack for arranging a successful writer's retreat.

The Log Cabin was so pretty and really out in the woods.

As part of a successful writer's retreat we often look around the area for touristy or scenic things and in this case we could not resist historic Fort Dodge. Erica found it and lured me and Dawn to it the morning the retreat ended.

I took so many pictures! But I won't subject you to all of them.

There was a pioneer village with old buildings pulled in 

to surround the restored Fort Dodge.

This is the Blacksmith Forge.

Below it the Blacksmith Shop.

I have a whole lot of pictures of old iron tools. I wanted to make my next character a blacksmith but after studying this building, I maybe can't handle it! We'll see.

Next we walked along the stockade walls to enter Fort Dodge. I just love this kind of stuff. 

Below is a picture of the Land Office. Looking around restored pioneer villages helps me to remember all the possible stores in a town of this era. I tend to have a general store, a livery stable, a jail, a diner and a saloon. I'm trying to remember there are occasionally a few more things. This village had a veterinarian, a cabinet maker, a carriage maker, a drug store, a church, a school...I remember to add those always. It was a cool place.

And one more little thing...today is my mom's 93rd birthday. This is a picture from her 90th birthday party. Mom and all eight of her children. 

She's survived Covid and now is vaccinated but we are still very restricted in our visits to her nursing home.

So we don't get to throw her much of a party. I'll be gone for a while this morning. But I'll be back.

We all agreed this last year has been so majorly WEIRD with Covid and everything shut down, that getting together for the writer's retreat (all of us vaccinated) was just purely uplifting.

We haven't done it enough.

And we're already talking about next time!

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Braced for Love

Writer's Retreat...a lesson in being in a crowd of introverts

I went to a writer's retreat two weekends ago (actually a FIVE DAY RETREAT! But two days were mostly for travel. We arrived at 4:00 (or so) on Saturday and left bright and early Wednesday morning.

In that THREE days and one short fourth days. I wrote 18,500 words!!!!
DID YOU READ THAT?

This is Mary the long-time advocate of writing 1000 words a day.

Mary, Mom and My Cowboy

And I've been to writer's retreats before that were nowhere near this productive.

So what happened?

And what can someone else do to have such a perfect, successful writer's retreat.

There were eight of us, though one retreater only stayed one day.

It was organized by the lovely and brilliant Dawn Ford.

She's on the left, Sharee Stover is on the right in this picture.

SHAREE STOVER WHO JUST SIGNED 

A THREE BOOK CONTRACT WITH 

LOVE INSPIRED SUSPENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it was an almost perfect dynamic. Yes, we talked and laughed and ATE. (Have mercy we ate)
But not really by design, everyone showed up to work. Or enough of us did that those of us who would be been willing to talk and eat MORE, were forced to work.

What do you mean

 Erica is working too hard to talk!?

Raising hand.

First, we all split up. I had the living room to myself.
Another lady set up shop at the dining room table. (I'm not sure who all to name here. I'm bragging on everyone but still, the names might be withheld as to specifics...except ERICA was there and I'll tell every single thing she did!)

Erica was almost always in the bedroom we shared.

This house we VRBO'd was REMOTE. I still keep thinking, 'What is that beautiful house doing out there in the middle of nowhere.'
It is BEAUTIFUL. But so far from anywhere.
Which means, there is NO ESCAPE FROM WORK.
Unless you want to go outside in windy 50 degree weather with spitting rain and look at SHEEP.
Yes, that's right. I was there FIVE DAYS and managed one picture of Dawn and Sharee and about ten pictures of SHEEP.
ON MY SINGLE WALK.

Sit back down there and work.

There were FIVE bedrooms and a full basement with a sitting room and kitchen.
The point here is, we could completely be alone. Eight people in one house and no problem at all being in complete silence alone.

In that picture above, I am in a chair that was MOVED when the website posted this picture. I put a Number 1 on it before I realized that was dumb and started labeling them differently but my skilz are such that I couldn't change the ONE.
The hallway with Erica's name on it, leads to a pair of bedrooms. I think there was someone in the other bedroom but I'm not sure. Everyone was so QUIET!

And all of us worked. Long hours of quiet time.
AND IT WAS MISERABLE WEATHER.

We had to stay inside in a very pretty rural setting. Very few walks no matter how good they would have been for us.

(sneaking in a cover of my October release AIMING FOR LOVE. Now available on Amazon.
I've got a cover for book #2, too. It's called WOMAN OF SUNLIGHT. But I am forbidden from sharing it yet. and let me tell you it is taking EVERYTHING IN ME to not post it.)
Josephine Nordegren is one of three sisters who grew up nearly wild in southwestern Colorado. She has the archery skills of Robin Hood and the curiosity of the Little Mermaid, fascinated by but locked away from the forbidden outside world--a world she's been raised to believe killed her parents. When David Warden, a rancher, brings in a herd much too close to the girls' secret home, her older sister especially is frightened, but Jo is too interested to stay away.

David's parents follow soon on his heels, escaping bandits at their ranch. David's father is wounded and needs shelter. Josephine and her sisters have the only cabin on the mountain. Do they risk stepping into the world to help those in need? Or do they remain separated but safe in the peaks of Hope Mountain?

Did I mention I took pictures of sheep?

I also took videos of sheep.

I can't figure out how to load them so use your imagination...that is probably better than my videos anyway.

Also the food was so well organized.
We each volunteered for a meal.
Eight of us.
Ten meals really, starting with an evening meal the first day. Then breakfast, lunch, dinner the next three days. Then breakfast the last day which no one ate because we all headed out.
We all took a meal. Mostly breakfast was light, though were were some eggs! But mostly cereal and bagels, easy stuff.
We talked about dietary restrictions.
We told what our plan was so there was input.
Everyone brought munchies. There was PLENTY.

Everything was in order, provided by the person who'd signed up for that meal...and we had NOTHING TO DO.
Ahem...excuse me. We had nothing to do but WORK.

And we sure enough worked.
The first short day I wrote my usual 1000 words and felt quite proud and righteous.
If only I'd known!

Did I mention there were sheep?

I was told there were also goats and chickens but it was cold. 

I walked until I saw the sheep, then turned back.

I'm not claiming to be Jack London here.

Instead of doing much else I just wrote. And wrote and wrote.

TWICE I got up from my writing (well, okay, maybe FIVE TIMES -- Ten, shut up)

And considered who to drag out of their little cocoon--Erica has been known to be open to such things--and make them talk to me.

But I was  good girl.

I thought, hey, maybe they were working. Maybe they were accomplishing great things.

Maybe I should GET BACK TO WORK MYSELF.

HO HUM

But I did it.

Let me insert that HUGE NUMBER OF WORDS AGAIN.

Elements I'd advise for a great productive writer's retreat.

1. STAY PUT. Don't add outings and fun attractions. Not if you want to produce words.

2. Organize the food, take turns. Hand out responsibility then leave whoever volunteered to handle it.

3. Quiet space. If I'd've been sitting next to someone, less work would have gotten done. Unless someone gagged me and that was always a possibility.

4. And respect for each other's efforts to make a getaway worth the time, money and effort to get there. (This house wasn't overly pricey by the time we split things up.)

If you have any questions I'd be glad to answer them.

Especially if they're about SHEEP.