RETREAT
On Thursday April 26 my writing critique group, Tapestries, set off for a twice yearly retreat. On a brisk partly cloudy morning I drove to Amagansett on the south fork of Long Island, almost to the tip at the Montauk Lighthouse. I met one of our members at Sea Crest on the Ocean where we stay and we went to lunch. Over a tasty chicken salad sandwich on rye bread we relaxed into the few days of peace, quiet and writing as winds blew across the sandy coastline. For three days, four writing women read, wrote, brainstormed and walked on the beach searching for stones left by our muses. Picking up these invisible stones of inspiration we fondled them in our hands, turning them over and over in search of a unique character trait or edgy plot twist that would make our novels rise above the slush piles in editors' and agents' offices. At the end of our peaceable retreat I had revised two short stories and a chapter of my novel. A quite productive opportunity to be the writer I k