Two September Writing Adventures

(aboard the ferry, passing the Portsmouth Harbor lighthouse)

This has been an amazing, adventurous 2016! As of this morning, I've completed 52 individual fiction projects (one novel, a dozen novellas among them), and have traveled far and wide (including to Hollywood, where I attended and received Honorable Mention for my short story "Mandered" in The Roswell Awards). In September -- in addition to getting married -- I enjoyed not one but two productive writing retreats. Both featured returns to destinations I've visited and loved before.

The first took me across the Atlantic to the Isles of Shoals. I enjoyed Dale Finley Slongwhite's wonderful Writelines conference to Star Island once before, in 2012. This time around, Hurricane Hermine had different plans for us, and made the sea so choppy that the Coast Guard grounded ferry service for the first two days of our visit. Hermine be damned, Dale had us gather in a hotel nearby the ferry's launch, and, while we labored over daily updates, we kicked off the workshop in the hotel's meeting room. I loved my last time in Dale's classroom, which was and is filled with fantastic writing exercises designed to challenge and inspire (they did!). I completed a short Viking-themed speculative story our second morning in the hotel and began work on a mystery feature film screenplay (by the end of the island adventure, I had the first full third down). We dined at local restaurants and waited. Early Wednesday morning, we got the news that, long last, we'd be on our way to the island. The voyage across the ocean was exhilarating, inspiring. At one point, the islands surfaced from the endless expanse of gray, and we were there. My room this time around was in the actual hotel and not the outbuildings, and came with the rarest of rare: two plugs. They'd added WiFi since my previous visit and, while checking emails during breaks from the writing workshop, I learned I'd been invited to submit a mystery and a western to two different editors.

The food was great, the company stellar. I dig Dale's boot camp-style approach and left the island two days later with plenty of fresh material -- and two new stories, the first of which I penned the very next morning following my return home to Xanadu.

Two autumns ago, our writers' group attended a long weekend retreat to the Waterfall House, a beautiful antique mansard colonial perched atop roaring falls in Stark, New Hampshire. We returned at the end of this September to the house, which was as charming as I recalled. Our first night there, five of us enjoyed an incredible feast of homemade dips, sauces, and jams with cheese and crackers, coconut macaroons, and bakery brownies. For our second night, I slow-roasted a ten and a half pound prime rib from the local butcher shop, and it was incredible! On our third night at the Waterfall House, we enjoyed homemade spinach lasagna and meatballs, salad, and a variety of desserts.

From the moment we landed, I uncapped my pen, poured hazelnut coffee or raspberry seltzer, and wrote. My intention for the weekend was to return home with a briefcase filled with completed manuscripts, and I did -- some 15,000 words between four projects, along with busy work on others. I penned my oldest incomplete project, the novella "Destiny", to THE END, along with two shorts and a longer mystery story, "The Eleven O'Clock Ice Kill." Our weather, though mostly overcast, didn't stop retreaters from taking walks or working outside on the deck overlooking the falls, and, though I left creatively depleted, I accomplished all I hoped for.

In three days I depart for my sixth and final road trip adventure of 2016 -- to When Words Count in Vermont for four days and three nights. I'm bringing a novel, the mystery screenplay, and a handful of short stories to work on. It's been a fantastic year! And 2017 seems poised to begin on a similar high note: while luxuriating last weekend at the Waterfall House, I was approached to pen a novelization of a made-for-TV movie from its screenplay. I've said yes!

Halloween 2015 Retreat to the Coppertoppe Inn

(me, looking loopy after a luxurious one-hour soak in my suite's
gargantuan whirlpool tub)

From Friday, October 30 through the First of November, ten members of my Berlin Writers' Group and its extended family retreated to what must be one of our fair state's best-kept secrets, the Coppertoppe Inn and Retreat Center. I discovered Coppertoppe last March after several in BWG mentioned doing another autumn retreat -- perhaps to one of our local high-end hotels here in New Hampshire's North Country. It turned out that the hotel of choice had closed down, leading me on a web search in between the penning of fresh pages to find other possible venues. And, as was often said and emoted during our weekend stay, we made the correct choice in our commitment to this wonderful literary destination. Hosts Sheila and Bill took great care of us -- me, almost from the moment I landed at the gorgeous B & B located on a rise overlooking Newfound Lake.

The retreat actually started for me several days before heading south from my front door to Coppertoppe. In the spring, I invited my dear friend Tina to join BWG for the retreat. Tina and I were thick as thieves in high school, a difficult but supremely formative era in my life. During that time, as I embraced my individuality, creativity, identity, and, yes, weirdness, Tina was the best friend I could have asked for. At the onset of sophomore year, I confessed to her that I wanted to be a writer. We instantly bonded -- I didn't know until then that she wrote poetry. For the entire year and the next one that followed, we were inseparable, often times riding the bus back to her house where we worked on our creative writing endeavors instead of homework, watched episodes of our beloved Star Blazers, which ran at 3:00 in the afternoon, and Force Five, another Japanese anime import about giant robots defending the Earth, that followed. Flash forward thirty-five years, and the star of Star Blazers, the fabulous Amy Howard Wilson ("Nova") has blurbed my book about giant robots, Tales From the Robot Graveyard, and my great friend traveled far north to stay at our home, where we would write and laugh and travel through time before departing for the retreat together.

(Tina on the famous Coppertoppe glider)

The ride south through Franconia Notch to the town of Hebron was smooth and delightful, the fun enhanced by the addition of mystery writer and fellow group moderator Irene Gallant, whom we collected en route. As soon as we landed to a house filled with writers, most already composing new work, I was inspired by the view and venue. I learned that I would be staying in the Garnet Suite, which boasts a bed that would impress Louis the XIV, complete with a gargantuan bathroom covered in about an acre of serpentine marble tile and boasting one of those showers that makes a person recently turned fifty feel like pampered royalty. I carried up my few bags (I've learned to pack smartly and travel lightly after so many literary adventures) and then headed downstairs to the B & B's vast library to begin writing. It turned out that I hadn't packed as smartly but definitely lighter than I'd thought, when my computer shut itself down in power-saving mode, and I realized I hadn't brought the power cord with me.

No worries, however. Bill, a tech wizard, produced the perfect temporary loan, one of several Coppertoppe keeps on hand for those just-in-case emergencies. Soon, I was up and running, surrounded by books and other respected writers, and I quickly belted out the last 2,500 words of a first draft of "Vampire", a Halloween story moved to the front of a very long line of works in progress thanks to a writing prompt given out by the fabulous Judi Calhoun. The following morning, freshly showered (and feeling a lot younger than my years), I sat at the incredible writing desk in the Garnet Suite and began working on a fantasy short story that has lingered in my idea catalog for twenty-two years. After a struggle to find the groove, I decided to take a nap in my enormous bed. I passed out, unaware of how depleted my creative batteries have been, and slept like a baby.

(Me reading on Halloween Night)

After waking, I decided to indulge in a long, lazy soak in the suite's whirlpool tub. When I emerged, feeling like my body had transformed to the weight of granite, I flopped back in bed under the fan and, an hour later, had all the energy in the world. I powered through the struggle with the fantasy story, wrote almost to the end (some 5,000 words in all), and joined my fellow creatives downstairs in the library for our planned Halloween night reading. Irene had given us a prompt of her own for that night's event -- a Halloween-themed story, told in under 1,000 words. I shared "6 x 3", which weighed in at roughly 800. We went around the room, and I got to hear some amazing drafts, including a completed short story by my dear friend Tina, which inspired applause.  Another brilliant writer, Laura Bear (who traveled from New York State to join us), wrote a fantastic story on the spot, one set at the retreat involving the members of the group facing mortal jeopardy. The readings concluded with bags of candy and an abundance of inspiration.

Fittingly, November 1 dawned overcast and moody, with fog obscuring the lake, a preview of the gray time that starts in this month and dominates our part of the world until March. I packed my bags after another of those luxurious, long showers, ate a spectacular breakfast, and headed down to the library, for the very first of National Novel Writing Month's write-ins. I penned an additional chapter of my novel, bringing my total word count to just shy of the 9,000-k mark. By 1:00, the car was packed, the last of us departed, and the retreat came to its official conclusion. A fantastic and productive time, we're already planning our next visit to Coppertoppe!

October 2014 Writing Retreat to Maine

(Writing on the big porch)

It was the writing getaway that almost wasn't.  Four days before I was set to depart for the autumn retreat to my Southern New Hampshire group's venue, a friend's wonderful and welcoming house in the town of Rangeley, Maine, I got socked by a miserable illness.  As Thursday approached, it became clear I wouldn't be able to attend.  I was beyond disappointed.  My good pal Douglas Poirier -- one of those upcoming names in literature to keep watching -- called and said he wouldn't be heading up until Friday, and if I felt better, he'd be driving right past my house.  I don't medicate apart from aspirin and melatonin, but I choked down copious amounts of the over-the-counter pink stuff, and on that bright October Friday morning, I woke feeling infinitely better. I was a day late, but I ultimately made it to the retreat.

Normally, I'm meticulous about these grand events.  I have my bags packed well in advance, have mapped out the projects I want to work on, and leave nothing to chance.  But this time, with my attendance pushed back to the Eleventh Hour, clothes got tossed into my overnight bag at the last second, and I decided I would write whatever called to me once we landed, no preconceived expectations.  After paying the mortgage and shopping locally for Friday night dinner (I was asked to cook the Thursday night welcome meal but was, on Thursday night, in bed feeling lousy), I hopped in Doug's car, and we drove steadily north through the mountain landscape.  The foliage was stunning, and our conversations on the writing life beyond inspiring.

We arrived and, after greeting my fellow scribes, I camped on a rocker and began work on "Hibernation", a novella that has haunted me since the previous winter.  The fresh pages flowed fairly quickly, and I stopped only to make a luscious dip for chips and vegetables.  Then I capped my pen and cooked dinner for the gang -- a massive boneless pork roast, mashed potatoes, salad, and apple sauce.  While dinner simmered, I snuck in a few more pages, sipped raspberry-lime seltzer, brewed a pot of coffee, and luxuriated in that rocker beneath a maple tree dressed in a cloak of bright pumpkin-orange leaves.

(Group photo, minus Doug)

Our hostess, the wonderful Melissa Gates (another of those exciting new voices to be on the lookout for -- Melissa's just had a publisher request her first novel), has graciously opened her home to members of the Southern N. H. group as well as those in our group up here in the Great North Country now three times over the past eighteen months.  We've seen all manner of the wild and unexpected, including a violent microburst (a kind of localized tornado) that knocked all the rockers off the porch and blew a massive barbecue grill across the yard during the first retreat.  This trip had its plot twists, too -- not limited to my medical travails, which appeared to clear up right in time for the bulk of the weekend stay.  But as I settled down for that first night's dinner with my fellow scribes, a sense of happiness embraced me and I caught myself smiling on numerous occasions.  I slept like a corpse in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and got writing again the next morning after a big breakfast.

For lunch, it was suggested we take a walk to the local barbecue restaurant down the road.  My lunch consisted of an amazing apple cider-brined brisket, fries, and a kale/Brussels sprout slaw.  After we stuffed ourselves, we moseyed down to Rangeley Lake.  A moody gray mist hung over the surrounding mountains, and the foliage seemed to glow against the gloom.  We returned to the retreat house, wrote, and I grabbed a quick afternoon nap while the night's dinner slow-cooked: boneless lamb and vegetables.  Now, I'm not the biggest fan of lamb, but it was beyond delicious and added that proper decadent note to our last big meal of the weekend.

(Saturday afternoon on the lake)

Dessert was a giant German chocolate cake from the famous bakery near where we used to live before we bought Xanadu and moved so far north.  A chocolate disk at the center of the cake bore a single word in German: Schriftsteller -- 'Writer'.  The cake was beyond delicious.  We enjoyed our second reading of the weekend (during which, Melissa gave me a manicure; sadly, no photographs exist of that hilarious and decadent moment).  I returned to my room and again slept soundly. Sunday morning broke gray and melancholy, because it meant the weekend had ended. After breakfast at a restaurant in the downtown, we took our big group photo and began to depart for home. Still, as I returned to family and Writing Room (and some nifty snail mail, including a contributor copy containing my story "Calliope") my inner voice reminded me how grateful I was to have made it to Maine.  I can't wait to be back within that house's inspiring geometry again!  Possibly in April, we've been told.

When Words Count Writers Retreat Part Two

Within a minute of my arrival to When Words Count Retreat Center, a new destination for writers nestled in a rambling country hollow between the mountain peaks of Rochester, Vermont, I knew I had found my way to one of the happiest places on the planet. Since the autumn of 1993, I have retreated to write regularly across the New England countryside, from inns to islands and all points in between.  That first retreat to Wentworth Mountain over the Halloween weekend of '93 changed my life forever -- I went there determined to either give up this 'writing thing' or to embrace it like my very life depended upon the outcome.  Circumstances clearly favored the latter; even at its darkest moments since, I have loved my life, lived it with joy and exuberance.  Wandering the happy halls of When Words Count was like stepping back nearly twenty years through time to that very first retreat where I drank copious amounts of Earl Grey tea, luxuriated before a roaring fire, and communed with my muse in an intimate way deeper than marrow or blood; on a soul level.

That Monday night, I and my fellow conferees -- the fabulous Amber Lisa, the inimitable Jan Cannon (who is penning an amazing book), Lisa Cordeiro, and writer singer/songwriter Chrissie Van Wormer -- lounged in the Gertrude Stein Salon for a reading of our works.  I had just the previous night gotten book galleys for my short story "Phantomime" which was selected to appear in the invite-only anthology Blood Rites, a forthcoming release from Blood Bound Books.  I read the story aloud and got some fantastic feedback, and then I was thrilled to hear Jan's pages, followed by Amber's.  Both ladies knocked it out of the park as far as I'm concerned.  I love being read to.  I love it when the writing is stellar, and it sure was.

I enjoyed one of the most rejuvenating night's sleep in recent memory and woke with the opening of a short story that has eluded me since the spring and my trip through America's quite-wild West.  After showering, I wandered downstairs to the Stein Salon and wrote almost the entirety of "Cruciform" before Chef Paul arrived to cook us yet another exquisite breakfast.  I powered through to the end of the short story and returned to my novel Blinders, which got a wonderful jump start at the retreat center following six years of languishing unfinished within fifty pages of its THE END.  The same sense of euphoria I experienced in 1993 on the mountain where I chose to be a writer (or, more to the point, the writing chose me) embraced me, and I caught myself smiling widely while seated in the salon with its bookcases and cozy furniture and views of the rolling hills dressed in vibrant autumn colors, savoring the moment.

As part of our stay, we five were each given one-hour consultations with Jon Reisfeld and Steve Eisner who, along with Eisner's lovely wife Nele, were gracious and delightful hosts. Our conversation, held at one in the afternoon on Tuesday at the J. D. Salinger Cottage (a gorgeous detached bungalow just up the hill from the main house and the barn) was so upbeat, so energetic, it has sustained me well after my return from Vermont.  There are great and exciting plans for professional writers being created at the retreat center.  Based upon what they'd seen -- my usual output of fresh pages, one after another -- and what they'd heard me read, Jon and Steve invited me to be part of the excitement, which will also include a return to the center to lecture and workshop with other writers not far down the road.  I skipped along the trail back to the main house following my consultation.  There, beaming, I indulged in that day's episode of my beloved soap General Hospital on the Stein Salon's flat-screen.

Dinner that night included the most delicious butternut squash soup I've ever had the joy of tasting, with creme fraiche and a toasted crouton. Succulent roasted chicken and cauliflower, leafy salads with heirloom tomato and a sweet balsamic dressing, and perhaps the best chocolate chip cookies in the history of the planet followed.

"With simple yet fine ingredients, you can make lavish meals.  You can create something that people really respond to," says Chef Paul Kremar, the culinary genius behind the retreat center's incredible gourmet fare.  "With a handful of ingredients, you can create food that is as good as anything you've ever put in your mouth."

Chef Paul, whose enthusiasm and aura radiated throughout not only the Julia Child kitchen but the dining room and the Stein Salon, where nightly he served up incredible appetizers, was a visible and welcome presence throughout my stay.

"I don't subscribe to that old school notion that the kitchen is the sole domain of the chef," he says. "People are fascinated with food and want an interactive experience.  I believe in the opposite of the old Gourmet Magazine philosophy, which had a 'don't try this at home!' mentality.  Here, I like to interact with you, maybe inspire you to show that you can try this at home after you leave.  Flavor and texture must always reign supreme, and local food gives you a strong footing in terms of quality.  But it should always be yummy.  My goal is to make it the yummiest for our guests."

On our final night, Lisa read her latest short story, a paranormal mystery, and Chrissie, too, shared from her present work-in-progress, both offerings engaging and a treat for the ear.  I retired to my room exhausted but also energized.  For days, I'd absorbed the details of my surroundings, the trees and flowers outside, the elegant antiques acquired from months of auctions, artwork, and the personalized author-specific touches to the rooms.  I slept well and woke rested on the last day of my stay, a rainy and overcast Wednesday.

Saying goodbyes at a conference or retreat are never easy, but no sense of melancholy hung over my departure from When Words Count.  Bruce arrived in our car on time, and off we drove through the bucolic, rain-lashed countryside, headed for home.  A few stops along the way for provisions, and we enjoyed a happy night snunkered down with the cats while rain hammered the State of New Hampshire. Since that afternoon, the amazing energy that infused the retreat has stayed with me, as have the connections made in that magical place, a gift I gave myself and one all writers should treat themselves to.  I am counting the time until I return to that little slice of literary Heaven-on-Earth!

Writer's Retreat on Star Island, Part 2

The lighthouse on Lunging Island

Every twenty-two seconds, the lighthouse on nearby Lunging Island sounds a melancholy note.  From my room on the second floor of Cottage B on Star Island, the elegy crept in at night from the open window that faced the Oceanic Hotel and the small, ancient graveyard and gazebo house overlooking the Atlantic. Between Star Island and Lunging, a notorious landmark known as Halfway Rock is marked by a buoy that rings in counterpoint.  Halfway Rock is an unforgiving outcrop known to feast upon the keels of vessels, some as recently as the summer of 2012.  Very late at nights in my room, my mind fixated on the melodies, leading me to close that one window through which the ocean breeze swept.  Mornings were a symphony of gulls and crashing waves, the ever-present lighthouse, and, on one morning, a bit of spirited and colorful dialogue from fishermen on the decks of boats anchored in the harbor directly across from my front window.

On the second day of the Writelines workshop conducted by Dale Finley-Slongwhite, particular prompts led to the openings of three short and long stories.  The prompts and these starts fueled my inspiration into the stratosphere -- Dale presented us with such great challenges!  One of the biggest Writelines policies is that what happens inside the workshop stays within the workshop, so I've respectfully agreed not to discuss the specific prompts.  I will, however, say they were all great.  By Wednesday, one in particular put high octane ink in my fountain pen and I began work on a novella near and dear to me that had stalled, despite a publisher's interest in contracting for the project.  I placed the nib to the page and by day's end had another 3,000 quality words.  By the workshop's conclusion, I'd written forty-one pages of "The Ferry," taking it past the halfway point.  En route to the island, hoping for such a breakthrough, I'd interviewed the First Officer onboard the Thomas Laighton, who was gracious and giving about the daily operations on board the ferry. Once moving again, my pen never stilled.

The ancient graveyard and gazebo house on Star Island

When not workshopping -- and Dale kept us beautifully busy -- I communed with the Muse and thoughts of stories waiting to be penned. One new project in particular shadowed me about the island, filling me with enthusiasm.  I read a Space:1999 paperback novel I'd snagged at 2008's Camp NECon writer's conference, and could not put it down. I rocked in one of dozens of rattan rockers lined along the Oceanic's vast front veranda, flipped through the latest issue of Poets and Writers Magazine, dreamed.  But more than anything, I wrote. Through a moody, misty-gray Tuesday. Through a humid Wednesday.  Through bright and warm Thursday and Friday.  I wrote and recaptured much of the depleted energy I've expended during this incredible year of 2012.  In all, I put down nearly 16,000 words of fresh copy -- three story starts, all keepers, my pages of "The Ferry," and a complete new short story.

Me and MUSE on the Oceanic veranda, Credit: Frank Hochreiter

Meals at the Oceanic were amazing, most of the vegetables in salads, soups, and stews originating in the lush gardens tended on Star Island.  Rooms in the cottages and hotel lack air conditioning and fans but mostly I never noticed -- the Atlantic provided constant breezes. Everywhere one turns, views are spectacular. Dale really pushed us and kept us writing.  The constant momentum, near boot-camp in delivery, tapped into reserves.  The results were fantastic.  As for my fellow conferees, I could not have been surrounded by lovelier folk.

As the ferry again appeared, ready to return me to home and family, my backpack filled to capacity, my creativity fueled, I thanked my lucky stars that, long last, I took the plunge and committed to the Writelines retreat on Star Island.