Turns Out It Was the Sobbing Thing...

I'm back and so glad to be home! My house! My food! My husband! My cats! My TV! All here waiting for me... Life is good.

I'm laughing to myself as I think about composing this blog entry. What to say and how to say it so I don't come off appearing shallow and um, shallow. Oh, there's no hope for it. The truth will out!

I arrived Monday morning and settled into the cabin. Adorable, as you can see from the pictures. Snug, cozy and best of all, there were two full journals of entries from prior "cabin dweller's" as we're referred to by the people on top of the hill who run the non-profit corportate retreats.  I read a few entries and was comforted by what I found--prior artists just like me who were worried about wasting their WildAcres opportunity, were wondering if they really had anything to say and--also like me--were wondering if it was entirely safe out there in the wild? (There were also numerous entries about the little ring snakes and carpenter ants those in the summer months had to contend with. I wrangled with a beetle and a spider large enough to topple King Kong but other than that, the critters gave me the all clear).

It felt..odd...being in the cabin. I didn't know where to sit or what I should do with myself.  I decided I would spend some time just reading over my work so as to get in the groove.  I found myself in an intense hour-long writing session where the words just flowed. And had the added benefit that even 5 days later when I read them again, I still liked them.

The next day, Tuesday, was a good day. I got up and went straight to work. Worked unti about 2 then went for a two hour hike. (Why do forest people put smiling little cartoon snakes on path signs? If they're trying to make us feel welcome, it's not working...)  Came back, showered, a little more work and then dinner "up the hill."

It was 7:30 when I arrived back at the cabin. Still early. I tried to work a little more but felt burnt on that so I read. Lots of reading. And went to bed. Pretty much the same pattern on Wednesday except I noticed by Wednesday afternoon I was starting to view the cabin not as a hiatus, but as a prison.  More on this later.

I'd mentioned in my previous blog entry that I was looking forward to this time away as a means of finding out my "real" work schedule. Turns out my natural rhythm is in harmony with how my life is currently set out. I am not a late night writer. There were no 3 AM "Eureka!" moments.  I was still up early and exercised a bit before work. I was not interested in working much past 7 PM (although I did have one productive night where I made it until 9:30). But it turns out I am an early morning/early afternoon writer after all.

The biggest benefit gained from the cabin is learning how much time I take away from my writing due to distranctions.  At the cabin, there were 4 options - work, read, sleep, hike.  And at nighttime and on the days it rained, there were three.  Many was the time I didn't feel like working. I'd already worked 5 hours--I deserved a break, right? But there was nothing else to do so--sigh--I pulled the lapout back out. And accomplished a ton of work.

That doesn't happen at home where if I don't feel like working there is e-mail, TV, radio, I-pod, cats, laundry, mail, etc. to grab my attention. What I found is that even if I didn't feel like working, quite often once I sat down and got into it,  I didn't mind.  It made me realize just how often I don't "sit down" and give myself the chance to get into the work.

Even with that being said, nighttimes were rough for me. I longed for distraction and conversation. I was essentially alone 22-23 hours of each day.  By dusk, I was ready to talk and laugh and just be mindless. I almost broke down and drove to the nearest Wal-Mart 30 minutes away to purchase a video to watch on my laptop.  I intensely missed Blair and the cats. I took my cell phone up the hill where there was reception and left messages on my home and best friends answering machines, begging them to call me. When my friend Trisha called Tuesday evening she remarked, "I heard a little Jack Nicholson from The Shining in your tone. Everything okay there up in the hills?"

Tomorrow: How I became one with the spirit of early settlers who experienced the malady known as "Cabin Fever."

Writer's Retreat For A Week

It's finally here. Last year I applied for and was accepted at a residency program for artists. I'll be spending the coming week in a "rustic" cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, working on projects of my choosing.  There is no phone, no TV, no radio, no Internet. As I've told family and friends, a week of solitude will either deliver to me deep, personal insights about my calling and purpose in being on this planet or I'll spend the week huddled in a corner, rocking, sobbing, and systematically ripping a tissue to shreds.  We'll see...

For now, I can't wait. I have given myself mini-heart attacks this month, trying to clear my plate so I don't have looming deadlines hanging over my head while I'm away. I've been about 95% successful. There is one huge project that will require weeks of close attention when I return plus I'm MC'ing a humor contest for Toastmasters  three days after I return and was told I need to come up with "funny stories," but for the most part I'm working ahead of the game. 

I'm taking only 2 projects with me, both books in progress. One is non-fiction and the other is a middle-grade novel. That's it. No magazine articles, no business writing, no speechwriting, no other work.  Just books.

What I'm most interested in gleaning from this experience is how I function (or if I will function) with a lack of structure. My day-to-day life is pretty much scheduled in 1-2 hour chunks. I'm up every day at 5 to exercise. I have meetings all day on Wednesdays. Such and such is always due on such and such date. Very scripted.

At this retreat, all of that will be gone. I won't have to be up at certain time because yoga starts at 6 or I won't need to wind my work down by 6:30 if I want to spend time with Blair in the evening. There are no cats to be fed, laundry to be folded, meetings to prep for and attend. It's all wide open. With such freedom, I'm wondering when I'll find my best work times to be.  Will I stay on schedule as a morning writer (for the most part)? Or will I find I like to take a late afternoon nap and stay up in the wee hours of the night working? Maybe I'll discover I actually prefer to exercise at noon vs. 6 AM.  Maybe I'll sleep in 3 hour bursts or I may collapse for 12 hours at a stretch. Who knows? But doesn't it sound like fun to figure it out??

 So I leave you with the blog entry for the week and these final words of inspiration I take with me to the mountains:

"Writing is not a profession, occupation or job; it is not a way of life:
it is a comprehensive response to life."
Gregory McDonald

I hope you all enjoy your response to life this week.

Cheers,

Dena  

Don't Touch the Floor

Did you ever play that game as a child where you and your brother or sister pretended that the floor of your bedroom or living room was really shark-infested waters, and if either of you touched the floor you'd die a horrible shark-chomping death?

 I was reminded of this game yesterday when our younger tabby cat Olivia decided she'd had enough combing for the time being and jumped from my lap to the desk in our office. Lucy (black and white cat but with an outlook on life remarkably similar to that of a chomping shark) was prowling around on the floor beneath her.

Olivia managed to avoid Lucy (shark) and wind her way around the room to her favorite chair via the circuitous route of big desk to little chair to smaller desk. Smaller desk to green chair to ottoman. Ottoman to windowseat, back to ottoman and then coming to rest on the other green chair. I just burst out laughing as it so much reminded me of being young. We used to see how far we could make it around the house w/out touching the ground, stepping on toys or swinging from lamps, if need be.

Wow. How long has it been since you've done something completely silly like that? Blair mentioned perhaps we'd go out for Chinese tonight but I think we have other plans.

Something involving sharks... 

Just Say NO to Glamour Shots

I'm thinking of starting a national campaign to ban all Glamour shots.  Is there anything more embarrassing than to walk into someone's office and see a picture of their wife in 80's hair, soft pink lighting, and a cowboy hat  tipped to match the angle of their head as they raise a manicured hand to the tip of the hat and offer what I'm sure the photographer assured them was a coy smile?

Ladies, please. What are you thinking?

I go Friday for my headshot. It will NOT be the "I work for a real estate company and decided to glamour it up" headshot. I'm aiming for the fun/professional look--something to use on my website, brochure and in the magazines that publish author photos with bylines.

I'm probably taking half my closet with me for a 30-minute shoot. I want one casual, relaxed shot and one "business" shot.

I think it will be fun. The photographer I'm going with takes as many shots as she can in 30 minutes (or an hour) and then you select two. 

Pray for good hair on Friday.