That lovely group of ladies are who I spent the first few days of November with, on my first-ever writer’s retreat, in a cabin outside of Heber, Utah. There were a whole bunch of awesome talented ladies there, including Karen Hoover who organized the event, the illustrious Ali Cross, master of the Writing Dojo, where I sometimes write, CK Bryant, a rising star in the Indie-publishing world, and so, so many more. (Can you spot me? I’m right in the middle of things, in the teal top!)

It was beautiful there—and cold!  But I have to admit I did not spend a lot of time taking in the surroundings. Instead I did a lot of this:

Except with less smiling at cameras and more typing. (I also listened to wonderful, inspiring mini-lessons at mealtimes by Annette Lyon, which were an awesome boon to the experience!) I won a paperback copy of Ali Cross’ Become, by the way, which I’ve started and is gripping so far!

Anyhow, most of the ladies there were there to get a great kick-off to their NaNo Novels, understandably, and there was some awesome progress made by some—we’re talking tens of thousands of words! One gal wrote an entire 35K novella and started work on something else!

Me? I had one goal in mind, and one goal only: finish the WIP I’d been working on for oh, long enough that it would be embarrassing if those years hadn’t been interrupted by a marriage, out-of-work stress and a stay-at-home job working my butt off to try and pay the bills, and several (I’m not kidding, SEVERAL) cross-state-lines moves. I have been “close” to being done for probably a year now, but I needed one final push. And guess what?

I FINISHED MY WIP

In three days, I wrote 13,500+ words and finally got to write THE END. Now, I still have a lot of editing to do, but after that, I decided I needed a reward. And I decided my reward was going to be to NOT try and win NaNo. I’ve “tried” to win NaNo the past four or five years, though the closest I’ve ever come was 35K or so. (Which by the by, was this same manuscript). I decided this November I was going to take it easy and actually enjoy the holiday season a bit, rather than lock myself away in a room and ignore The Mr. all month long. Instead I was going to step back and enjoy my accomplishment for a little bit.

But now it’s time to get back to work. And I have to admit… I’m looking forward to it as much as ever!

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Thanks to Donna Weaver for the photos. 🙂