What is a Writers' Retreat?

As many of you already know, I was at a writers' retreat last week. Are you wondering exactly what that means? If you're thinking it means we sat around writing the whole time ... you're wrong. That's not what happened at this one, although I think I could totally enjoy one like that, too!

We were sequestered away at a little state park in Tennessee called Montgomery Bell State park. It's beautiful and quiet and peaceful. See? As I drove in, the trees were tall, meeting at the top, with the sunlight filtering through. It sort of felt like I was driving through a giant outdoor cathedral. Or a fairy tale.

The first evening, we had a fun picnic dinner down in a pavilion that was right next to a creek and just down from a beautiful little old-fashioned chapel complete with stained glass windows. Beyond that was a replica of a log cabin from the 1800s. It was fun to greet friends I made at the retreat last year as well as make a few new ones. It's always a pleasure to meet someone face-to-face who I had only chatted online with before this. The barbecue was pretty good, too.

The inn we stayed at is right by the lake, so we all had a lake-side view from our balconies. We would wake up in the mornings to fog and the calls of ducks. We'd go to sleep to the serenade of frogs and insects. One morning I even got productive and did some edits between sips of tea and watching the chipmunk just down from our room.

The rest of the days were filled with classes to help us improve our skills, gain motivation, strengthen our ideas, and build stronger relationships with the other authors around us. There's something amazing about being surrounded by people who talk about how to murder someone in one sentence and the horrible wreck her characters had to have in order to allow the sister and brother-in-law to fall in love in the next. Authors talk about scary things sometimes. We also played some games, got a little silly, and decided we have a love/hate relationship with trivia.

Because we got these crazy brains together, watch in the future for a few more fun things coming from some of us. After all, what's the point of spending three days together if you don't commiserate and collaborate on a few things, including maybe a novella collection by some of us further down the road?

It's hard to focus on writing when this view keeps distracting and fun people are nearby to talk with. But I came home with tons of ideas and plans. I'm so glad I got to go again this year and I'm already looking forward to being back next year.