It's So Good to Be Home
Writing on the Road & Returning to Familiar Surroundings
Ten days away in northern California, to lead a writers retreat I’d been planning since May of 2023 in Humboldt County, and now I am home.
It is so good to be back in the place that is familiar. Don’t get me wrong—I loved the last ten days. Humboldt is one of the most beautiful places on earth with the tallest trees and winding mountain roads, black night skies with pinpoints of light from stars millions of miles from here.
And yet…going away makes me, at least, grateful for my life here in Michigan. Here in the flatlands, in the four seasons, in the place of my family and my birth which I once couldn’t wait to leave, it is home.
Let me tell you about the last ten days, though.
Dan, Shaya and I left on the 18th and had three days before the writers arrived to explore the wooded trails of the redwood forests. We stayed in an old place and drove long miles to immerse in the quiet. Visited a company town called Scotia (that ancient Roman name for Scotland follows me everywhere!), fell in love with a town at the northern tip of the Lost Coast called Ferndale, toured the stunning murals of Old Town Eureka, ate oysters from the cold, clear waters of Humboldt Bay.
And then the writers came, just six for this retreat, which was lovely and intimate and perfect. We did yoga and wrote in the mornings, hiked among the redwoods in the afternoons. We took our inspiration from the trees, interconnectedness being a theme of the week.
I awoke each morning before the dawn, shouldered my backpack down to the main room in the inn, where a fire crackled each morning, and I made progress on my novel-in-process as the sun rose over the mountain horizon.
I’m happy to say I finished the draft!! Printed it last night and today I begin the arduous process of reading it on the page to see if it’s any good, and to make notes about how to make it better.
Usually, when I am teaching at a retreat, I don’t have much time for my own writing. This time, I don’t know what it was, but I felt in the bosom of the writing vibe, and I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote. My fingers flying on the keyboard, the words coming, the characters alive at my fingertips.
After the retreat, we drove south to San Francisco, dropped off Shaya for his red-eye flight home, then Dan and I had a weekend in the hilly city. We saw old friends and ate really good food and mostly, I lounged in the hotel binging on TV. I needed the break. The silence. The not-moving, not-doing.
So that, when I arrived home yesterday, I was ready to be in my life again. And I am.
I’ve been fortunate to book a lot of speaking engagements for my second novel, CAVE OF SECRETS, with travel every few weeks through the fall of 2025. I was super excited about it…only now, I want to be home.
In the place where I can chop vegetables and listen to them sizzle on the stove. Where I have my favorite teas, can pad in thick socks and sweat pants, can watch all the different angles of sun over my keyboard as I sit at my desk and do the work of the mind.
This weekend, I’ll be pulling up the garden. Wrenching it out of the ground and turning over the dirt. My plan for next season is to completely tear out the little plot that I’ve been working over the last ten years and build raised beds that won’t flood in the apocalyptic rains that we now have in these parts. I’m creating something completely new, from the work of my hands.
Which is something I can only do at home.
I hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining here. I am so incredibly grateful for this writing and teaching life. And also grateful for the quiet moments in familiar surroundings when the creativity is nourished and the heart swells.
Last Chance to Write with Me This Week!
There are TWO chances to write with me this week…tomorrow night, I will be teaching my annual webinar, Write Like Hemingway: The Art of the Sentence. Register here.
Sunday begins my Writing a Book course, condensed into one month for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You could be writing a memoir, too. It’s sold out, but if you really want in, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
And Saturday is my monthly FREE Writealong. If you’re not on the list, add your name here.
PS Soon I’ll be sharing information about my 2025 Writers Retreats. Very excited about what’s ahead, and I hope you can join me on some of them!
Love to you all! Thanks so much for reading.
Lynne Golodner’s Rebel Author Newsletter comes out every Monday with ideas and insights about writing and publishing. Thanks for reading! If there’s a topic you’d like covered, send me a message. And if you like what you read here, please support a working writer with a paid subscription, share the newsletter with others who might find it interesting, or write a Note to tell others about this missive.
It makes me long for Northern California, where I used to live. I liked how you got up early and wrote and wrote and wrote! It is such a good feeling. As a commercial airline pilot waiting for my late plane to show up right now, there is no place like home!