Not Kidnapped, Writing!

I just spent 4 1/2 days with 14 women shut up in a house.
No, we weren't kidnapped.
And we weren't there under duress. We wanted to be shut in for days on end.

I was at a writers' retreat. An annual affair I selfishly organize so I can get out of town to buckle down with my laptop to live inside my  head, only coming out for short sprints to eat, see if everyone slept well and look at the passing deer and elk out the windows.

My hubby asked if there was any drama this year and I looked at him like he had two heads.
These woman are over 30, are there to be productive and are WRITERS. Writers don't get snarky, competitive, mean, vindictive, nasty, dramatic. At least the ones I know wouldn't even think of letting those agendas into their lives.

My women writer Peeps are supportive, interesting, giving, lovely human beings who don't worry about furthering their personal agendas on a writers' retreat.
We eat healthy food, we hunker down for hours at a time at our laptops and we support each other. Someone comes out of the den to say they finished their book and we cheer. Another asks what's a good country song a dog can trot to and we put our brains to it.

This year we trickled in to the Lodge from Thursday afternoon to Friday night, one person getting waylaid on the highway when an accident temporarily closed the road. There were great stretches of time where everyone was quietly working but at meal times, we came together, emerging from the bedrooms, den, suites, office to talk, share, network, support each other's work and hear each others life stories. We talked travel, kids, politics, heartbreaks and of course writing. Our group this year all writes fiction and I did a little talk on how to adapt your work to a screenplay, something I've recently taken up doing. We discussed writing stronger, writing longer, marketing smarter and even had a 4-hour long Facebook party on the Sunday afternoon where six of us took turns asking questions and conversing with anyone who dropped in to our virtual party to win a free book.
Monday we packed, cleaned the massive kitchen, put all the furniture back where it was when we arrived, said our goodbyes and formed a convoy to support each other as we drove back to the coast through a snowy Snoqualmie Pass.
Writing can be a lonely life but this weekend, it wasn't.

I love this writers' community I'm a part of. It keep me going when I need something wonderful to grab onto.

I wouldn't be a plumber or a doctor or a real estate agent, even if I could.

I'm a writer.


KIM HORNSBY is an Amazon Bestselling Author best known for The Dream Jumper Series, which is optioned for film, with over 400 reviews on Amazon at 4.5 stars.
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