The Writing Retreat: Take Two

60,000 words has come and gone. Will this actually be a novel? Will I even finish Book Three? A well-timed Writing Retreat might just make all the difference . . .

Beautiful Park City, Utah

Our Writing Retreat last year helped me finalize Midnight Sisters for publishing this year. It was also one of the best weekends I had last summer. Fun, interesting, and just busy enough. So this year when the girls asked if I wanted to participate, I jumped right in. I had reached 50,000 words in my current WIP, which is the length Becoming Beauty weighed in at, and I had also reached a critical point where I wasn't sure what to do next.

Mermaid tails keep toes warm. It's true.

As you may know, I'm not a planner. Well, there are times that being a pantser really leaves me in the lurch. And this was one of them. I'd been adding 10,000 words a week throughout July and had more than doubled the length of my novel. I planned to add as much as I could during our Writing Retreat and then browse the manuscript from the beginning for ideas of how to reach the end. I put in about two days writing and added about 5,000 words and gained some direction at last.

Yep. I finally know how I'm getting to the end! And if it took a lot of snacks, ice water on standby, a couple of pool and hot tub hours, and countless quiet writing hours, I'm glad to do it! Our Park City weekend also included evenings on the town and a Saturday shopping spree at the outlets. If you haven't figured it out, I love ALL of those things.

Book Three will probably take another year to complete, edit, and polish but it's much closer to the finish line than before Writing Retreat 2017. Carry on, my writerly friends, and remember that there's power, inspiration, and strength in numbers. Also, geekiness.