Tuesday, December 03, 2013

What's your idea of an ideal writer's retreat?

I'm sitting here in the eat in kitchen.  The laptop is on the table and papers spread out all over it. That's if the rescue cat doesn't jump up and send the papers, pens, highlighters flying to the floor. If you could only see it. This is my work station. In all the chaos, I have sunlight streaming in and if I'm lucky, complete silence except for the hum of the refrigerator.

I have a work station upstairs.  It houses my old desktop, many many books, plants and a dog who insists on sitting in my lap the whole time I'm trying to work.  God love lap dogs but they're a pain in the backside when your legs start to go numb.  This desktop is so slow, it's faster on my laptop, that's why I'm in the kitchen.

I have a book that needs finishing.  That's the cover in the left hand sidebar.  It REALLY needs finishing.  It's just a couple more chapters of edits and I'm good to go, but getting to it means stopping what I'm doing (yeah like that's going to happen) and going upstairs to work on it.

And I get to imagining....what I need is an ideal writer's retreat where there's no dogs, no rescue anything, no interruptions, no saving plants from flying to the floor, no saving dog from rescue cat, no saving cat from being strangled...it is crazy.

So if I were to choose an ideal writer's retreat, it would be a treehouse in the middle of the woods completely safe from predators of course, a coffee pot, microwave, toilet and a nice comfy bed.  I would get up in the morning and make myself a cup of coffee.  No dogs to walk.  I would take a stroll through the woods to get my daily exercise, then climb up to my treehouse and get to work. Can you imagine how fast I would get this book done?

If you could escape to a writer's retreat of any kind - whether it's in the woods, on a lake, on a beach, on a houseboat, in the city, anywhere, where would it be?

Let's dream together.

7 comments:

Vicki Batman, sassy writer said...

Hi, Dorothy! I love my office. But what keeps me from writing is the social media and marketing. It's a lot. I'll be glad when the end of February hits. Your tree house picture is awesome. I wouldn't mind hanging there.

Kathy Otten said...

I won a two-night, three-day stay in Vermont last year at When Words Count Writers Retreat. It was great, no distractions, no cats to let in or out. No meals to cook or laundry to fold. Beautiful scenery, other writers to talk to, great food, and nothing to do all day but write. I'd really love to go back.

Melissa Keir said...

I love the idea of a treehouse. I am also sitting at the kitchen table. My stuff is over the table and the dogs are trying to get in my lap. I would love to be at a beach, somewhere warm, listening to the waves crash and the sun warm my skin.

Ahhh we can dream!!

thewriterslife said...

I so know what you're talking about, Vicki. I've been playing in Facebook all night and not getting any work done. It's my way of winding down.

thewriterslife said...

Wow. Kathy, that sounds like a dream retreat!

thewriterslife said...

You're at the kitchen table, too, Melissa, lol? I have a dog sitting in my lap right now. ;o(

Cheryl said...

Send me to the mountains with a cozy lodge, a fireplace, all day tea brewing, and no Internet. Then I would actually accomplish something.