IFWA, my writers’ group, has a bi-yearly tradition of setting aside a weekend JUST for writing. It’s a poor-man’s writers’ retreat. As members, it’s free to us (and the group even buys us pizza for the Saturday night when we all read a little of what we have written so far). From 6 PM Friday to 5 PM Sunday, you can hear nothing but the clacking of keys — especially my daughter, Heather’s. I forget how many thousand words she wrote over the weekend, but the excerpt she read aloud on Saturday night was to die for. I am so proud of her!
I got no actual words written, but I went through all the notes I have been accumulating over the past few weeks and wrote plot outlines for 2 novels. Lots of thinking / problem solving involved, so even though I had most of it worked out ahead of time, I was pretty cooked by the end of the weekend. However, I’m ready to go!
THIS weekend, I work on chapter one of my new novel, and I get almost 2 full days to work on it because the ski season hasn’t (quite) started yet — have to keep the instrument tuned, you know: healthy and active — and because last Christmas, Heather gave me the best gift a writer can get: a weekend to write. She is doing all my chores for me this weekend, so I have nothing between me and my story.