Tropical Rains in the North Atlantic
Tropical Rains in the North Atlantic
Waiting for the writers to arrive for my Nova Scotia retreat, which starts today.
I didn’t think anything of it when I went into town on Friday. So it was raining! We’d had perfect days since we left Detroit on July 1st, gorgeous sunshine, sea breezes and open roads. I met a writer at the Laughing Whale coffee shop in Lunenburg, had a lovely chat for an hour and a half, wrote for another two and a half hours, moving fast through the revision of my next novel.
Too much coffee making my head buzz and my heart pound, I closed my computer, slid into my raincoat and headed out in the steady downpour to drive back to my hilltop retreat.
The rain continued that evening, and I kept writing until finally, I’d finished the complete revision of the novel and was buzzing with excitement. More than 82K words, sculpted, finessed, characters deepened, scenes sharpened, sentence by sentence made more precise. I poured a dram of whisky, popped a curry chicken pie in the oven (from LaHave Bakery) and relaxed into the couch with the TV for hours.
It rained all night, steady patter on the roof, the tinny tap-tap as rain hit the stove chimney and shimmied down. Lightning split the charcoal sky. Even the baby buck who’d gnawed on shrubs just outside my window Friday morning was hiding in the trees with the does. Down came the rain, steady, quiet, then torrential, then pounding.
I woke at 3:42 a.m., wondering if the roads would be passable, if the steep, winding driveway to the house on the hill would be flooded. I stared into the dark, grateful for this refuge on the top of a hill. Around 4:30, I got out of bed and pulled a blanket and pillow onto the couch. I’m binging Yellowstone, that Kevin Costner cowboy show, feeling nostalgic for nothing I’ve ever known. Maybe a mythical dream of America. I don’t know.
Saturday, the rain finally stopped and a bashful sun lightened the sky. The air was cool, thick with humidity and blowing. In the early afternoon, I went out - the driveway was fine, except for places where the gravel had been cut into ridges, and I bought fruit, Guinness, fuel and ice cream. Vacation essentials.
My week alone has ended, and eight incredible women are arriving today for my Nova Scotia writers retreat. I needed that week of solitude. To reconnect with myself. To rest - which I rarely do. To have unscheduled hours to write. I finished the revision of my novel, which I hadn’t expected to breeze through, but once I got going, I just kept going. And now I’m ready to teach, to lead, to talk about writing about place, perfecting craft, strengthening voice.
If you’ve never given yourself the gift of retreat, do it. It doesn’t have to be big. Don’t feel like you need to drive 1,000 miles to a hilltop house in a place you’ve never been. Do it at home. Do it in the backyard. Do it where no one will bother you, where you can savor silence, bathe in it, have unscheduled time to create. Once you get going, you won’t be able to stop.
And if you can’t quite carve it out for yourself, you can always join me. I’ll be on Mackinac Island in September, as I am every year, leading a very special retreat. (I have room for 2 more writers, in case you’re feeling spontaneous!) I’m fine-tuning the details now for my 2024 Write in the Redwoods Northern California retreat. There are so many options to get away, and come back to yourself.
Check out a Reel I published on Instagram this weekend about how I made last week work for me and my writing, with some ideas for retreating yourself. Here’s a link. Or find it here on Facebook. (Please forgive my super-casual appearance - trying to be real online!)
Starting to Schedule Book Tour Dates
WOMAN OF VALOR’s September 26th launch is fast approaching, and I am now scheduling book talks! If you are part of a book club, Jewish community or women’s group that is looking for a book and a topic and a speaker, please consider me! We have a special discussion guide for book clubs and offer a discount for groups that buy 7 or more books. I also teach workshops when I speak. Lots of options!
It looks like I’ll be in California in February and Portland, Oregon in late March. If you’d like to add your community to the calendar, let me know!
Registration is Open for Fall Writing Classes
Quick shout-out to WritingWorkshops.com for featuring me on their blog in anticipation of the many writing courses I’ll be teaching this fall. Read it here. And check out my classes that are now open for registration here.
July Book Giveaway
Paid subscribers qualify for the monthly book giveaway, and I’ll be announcing the July lucky winner soon! This month, I’m giving away Elizabeth Berg’s Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, upgrade now to qualify to win!
Thanks for reading!! Until next week. Love, Lynne