Day 4. More words and more pretty beach, blue water and yes, sun.

Before we walked onto thisBlue Mountain Beach

we drank some of this

Write By The Water serves coffee.

then sadly sent off one of our writers… sort of like this

or maybe it was more like this

you go girl!

Then, it was back to the page.

More word wrangling, more scene swapping, and then, cold pizza and a change of venue.

SAM_5128

 

Later we met with our fellow creative junkies at Say The Word to talk about a spoken word and music collaboration that will be happening later this year. ( Yes, that is your teaser. Now hit that link and like their page, follow along. Be sure you are also part of WBTW’s page. )

Maria and Andrea are doing a beautiful thing on 30A. We are glad to be a part of it.

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Coffee at Amavida in lovely Rosemary Beach, followed by a trip into Seaside. Of course there was a stop at Bud and Alley’s,  stars twinkling overhead. Dinner at Crush, interesting characters abound. Delicious wine. But wait. We were not done yet. A challenge between writers sent us home, Macbooks were flipped open, music played in the background and there was that tap, tap, tappy tap. The sound that makes you write faster… or think faster…

Whatever it is? It works.

Thank you, Donia for last night at the retreat. For sharing your story, for reading mine and for being such an encouragement. I swear, I’ll never stop learning something new every day, like how the hot Florida sun can burn an unburnable Egyptian girl, a badge she’ll wear proudly on her return trip to the Canadian tundra.

 To anyone struggling with their writing- or life- today:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. TolkienThe Fellowship of the Ring

 

 

Day 3. When the writing gets serious. Also called committing to complete that… thing.

If you are a human being, you will have struggled at least once in your life to complete … something. Be it a kindergarten drawing, a fat reducing exercise regime, your math homework or a scientific experiment designed to disprove the Quantum Zeno Effect.

For writers, it’s not only the struggle to complete the poem, short story or novel, but the struggle to do it right. And by right, I mean, make a finished product that is marketable- and not as a joke, like some of these writers who were touted for really shitty writing.

I mean, unless of course, that’s your bag. I sort of think some people make crappy writing an art, or a jab at humanity, or a jab at my eye socket. Hello Stephenie Meyer. Shout out to Dan Brown.

ANYWAY…

I’m trying to finish book edits on Grand Theft Cargo- the multiple run through in which I finally get all the puzzle pieces to fit perfectly, unless of course you look under the couch cushions and see where I have hidden the extras. (That is all metaphorical, don’t you know? Put down the couch cushions.)

I wrote this sentence, and about a hundred and fifty versions of it.

I would kill for this man. I just wasn’t sure who.

I changed it around, wrote some sentences in front of it and after it, deleted them all, switched positions and pronouns, added adverbs, deleted punctuation, added more, tried it in French, and Spanish. Then… I wore slippers so that I wouldn’t disturb the other writers when I snuck into the kitchen to graze. I stared longingly at the beer in the fridge, the full bottle of rum on the counter. The Cap’n mocking me. Mocking my shabby sentence structure and poor attempt at humor.

I had, after all written a scene in which a bitch poisons- well, okay- drugs a dog.

Yeah.

Captain Morgan Freeman

I felt guilty for not writing as much as I wanted to, until one writer confessed she’d watched a movie, and the other had gone to the beach—in a bikini—on a windy 50 degree day.

Maybe I’m too hard on myself.

What do you say, Cap’n?

Is the Captain your friend?

Is the Captain your friend?

 

 

March retreat, Day 2

You know that thing where writers are in sync? Where women are in sync- and I am not talking about “that time of the month”, kind of syncing- just the place where you can find a common pace and go with it- no judgments, no qualifiers, no pretensions.

I love that.

A friend asked me a few weeks back if I had found my “tribe.” I knew exactly what she meant, and I answered honestly. Nope.

When I’m alone, writing, and losing myself in those head movies that run forward and backward and sometimes sideways. I have my tribe. My characters understand me – or better yet, I understand them. Sure, I create them, and sure, they are compilations of real life people- but they are the best and worst parts of people- the imagined bits of a person I either want to drink shots of tequila with in hot places, or strangle and leave for dead in dank, dark alleyways. I might be kidding about one of those. And yeah, I can’t call on a character to pick me up when my car breaks down or bail me out of jail or help me choose the perfect area rug for a winter cabin. That shit you save for your earthly tribe.

Yesterday, on Day 2 of the retreat, when Annette read an essay that made me cry, when Donia read an amazing, vivid, visceral story that touched me to the core, when we spent time with a professor pal whose poetry makes me swoon, a little squiggle of hope emerged in me. Tribe, it whispered.

Donia Sawaan

Annette Shope takes the steps to the beach.

Linda And Donia at the top of the world

 

 

 

SAM_5116

 

A place to write about the blues.

A place to write about the blues.

long day of work almost at an end.

seeing things sideways

seeing things sideways- not always a bad thing

 

At the end of the night...

At the end of the night…

 

The March Retreat, Blue Mountain Beach, Day 1

Day One.

We are here.

Blue Mountain Beach, FLorida

The sun is shining and it is warm at the beach… if you are from Canada. Good thing one of us is.

I have had 2 coffees and one beer. That is very good for me.

It is early. Give a writer time. There will be many more beers.

I saw the real Harry Potter. I think.

harry potter bike

Then, I wrote about girls fighting. Yes, hot- and deadly. Look here for research. Then, as the Universe will have it, I went out in the world and met a very cool chick who was a competitive fighter for twelve years. No shit. She agreed to read my day’s work and let me know if it’s A. authentic, B. exciting C. remotely possible even for my awesomely cool trucker chick

See, you have to always be aware, and open to possibilities, even if you are hanging out fireside in the woods-not in a creepy Druidian ritual worship sort of way- it was  completely normal- but simply in a rejuvenation of oneself with a bit of conversation and organic wine after a trek down a bumpy sandy road on a quest for a yoga-venture sort of way. Yes. I make up words.

And yet, it was pretty damn cool. We’d slapped down mats, bended and folded and shivasana-ed in a heated snap together Quonset structure on a bay at a maxillofacial surgeon’s commune.

Yoga Quonset Aweosomeness

“A monkey could do it,” he said. Not sure if he was talking about the Quonset set-up or reconstructive facial surgery.

So yeah, It’s possible. Anything is possible. This is Florida. The Emerald Coast. Panhandle Florida. And no, not the redneck part, because there is a vintage Lincoln in the garage and three airstreams out front, not the fancy kind you see in Architectural Digest all macked out for glamping, or owned by Matthew McConaughey, well, not yet, we’re assured.

We ate dinner at 9:30 at night, because we are so dedicated to our craft that we could not pull ourselves from the keyboard- or Linda couldn’t figure out what to wear- or because we got sidetracked talking to interesting people in front of a homemade pizza oven. One of these statements is true and one or more is false.

You choose.

We went here.

DInner at The Red Bar. A rosy experience.

DInner at The Red Bar. A rosy experience.

 

And saw this dude who desperately needs a stylist.IMG_0872

 

Also. There were fighter pilots. We did not know this until 24 hours later.

We did eat well, drink well and smash our bodies through a crowd. It was all good. Some of us came home to the retreat house to sleep, some to write, and some to check out episodes of Sons of Anarchy.

It. Is. All. Good.

Testimonials: From the Mouths of Writing Babes

“I had a wonderful three days of writing, planning, organizing, plotting. I worked on organizing the chapters of my work-in-progress, Book Two of the Moonlight Ridge Series.
I enjoyed the companionship of the creative writers who attended the Write By the Water writers retreat in beautiful Blue Mountain Beach.. This was such a well planned, delightful get-away, truly designed to let our creativity flow. Everything was perfect: the environment, the accomodations, the lovely beach and the wonderful ocean near enough to send our imaginations into high gear.”
Ramey Channell

Ramey Channell raises a toast to writing, with Angela Durden

“What a wonderful time I had at Write By The Water retreat. The quietly invigorating space motivated quick and thorough progress on my novel manuscripts for DFW: DFTF (code name), and on Whitfield, Nebraska (working title). Thank you, Linda Sands, for this venue.”
Angela K. Durden
Novelist. Songwriter.www.angeladurden.com

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 ”Write by the Water was the kick start my writing needed. Not only did I find inspiration in the camaraderie of being with other writers, the experience was a great confidence booster. Sign up for a Write by the Water retreat. It is work,  but it will be the most fun and productive work days and nights you will ever have.” 

Kim Williamson
Please friend me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, @kiwialabama.
Linda Sands and Kim Williamson, dinner at Johnny McTighes
And for those people who need more pictures…