| Thanks for your comments yesterday! It has felt fun to stay in touch, at least a little bit, this week.
It’s the final day of my retreat–or morning, I should say, since I leave right after lunch to drive home. Wednesday had been cloudy, grey, blustery, so yesterday I went for a walk on the lake right after breakfast, while it was sunny and gorgeous outside. I spent a litte time on the shore looking for agates and other interesting rocks, but a few rogue waves got me while I wasn’t paying attention. Sheesh, that water’s cold! |
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| After my walk, I spent the morning pounding on the computer. I finished my next version of revising Bookspeak, and I finished my next version of Gross Poems, too. Both still need more polishing, and Gross Poems needs more than that, actually. But I got to the next stage for both of them, so that was good. (I also had to take care of a couple of things related to my online class.) Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, and I went back to Hell’s Kitchen for grilled cheese and sweet potato fries (Yes, Pat Schmatz, I’d write better, too:>) I’ve never been to the Mpls one, but plan to try it soon. I had heard a month or two ago they were relocating so they’d be open longer hours.) | ||
| After lunch, I put up the Do Not Disturb sign and got out my Homelessness project. I did a lot of thinking, rereading my model book for it, rereading the freewriting poems I did months and months (maybe even a year) ago. I brainstormed a list of possible poems for the project as I was now envisioning it, and I spilled out very rough drafts of ten poems.
After that, my brain was empty. It was like I came to Duluth with a pitcher full of garbled ideas and tangled up poems, and I had finally detangled and ungarbled and poured out…and now there was not a drop left. I vegged out for a couple of hours. |
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| I did spend some more time later in the afternoon on a couple of things–brainstorming for some possible nonfiction trade book manuscripts I’d like to work on and brainstorming for a book proposal for a book for teachers.
I also discovered yesterday that if I closed my curtains a little, from my work table it blocks out the tree and I can pretend I’m in my cabin on a ship on the ocean or on Lake Superior. The illusion is ruined every so often when someone walks by on the path below and their head bobs along the bottom of the window, but still! Then I ate my leftovers from lunch and headed to the Irvin, an old freighter open for tours. During October, they make it a Ghost Ship. It was creepy and fun. The walk back to the hotel in the dark by myself was a bit nerve-wracking, though! But some cake batter ice cream from Cold Stone settled my nerves:>) |
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| I had a disappointing email from my agent last night (as far as editors’ responses), and I woke up this morning with a headache. But I’m looking forward to a few more hours of time. After breakfast and a walk, I’m going to spend some thinking/planning time about my writing career. What books do I want to write? What books am I skilled enough to write? What books might sell? And how do I find the happy medium to make a living doing what I love?
Then it’s back to the real world to put that pie-in-the-sky dreaming to work! |