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 know I am. A chance to be as authentic as I can be without having my time competing for my attention. I drove back home on a warm sunny Sunday morning knowing this is who I want to be, knowing that I can only be content when writing is upmost in my mind and I am not distracted from the task at hand, be it a poem, a novel chapter, or a flash fiction piece. I long for the time when each day can be mastered by writing. I long for the warm and windy contentment of a beach house, with sun pouring through the windows lighting the pages of a spiral notebook or the monitor of a computer.

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