The Retreat: Annotated

What made the Muses’ Colorado retreat so great for me? Well, everything the ladies wrote about all week: Good friends, limited contact to the outside world, writing goals, shop talk, plenty of s’mores, and PLENTY of coffee/wine (depending on the hour). But I wanted to give a detailed play-by-play⁰, because dissecting a case study has always helped me understand on a deeper level.

⁰Feel free to read the footnotes if you want some extra insight. If you’re not interested, skip them. I mean, it’s not like I worked hard on them for you. Jerk.

Friday. 5am. I rolled out of bed, braved the early airport masses, and hopped on the plane by 7am. With a coffee in hand, I spent the plane ride writing and critiquing.¹

¹ Talia rocks. That is all.  

Friday 10am. Hello, Denver. This was not an airport for the weak-hearted. After a 58 mile walk and a train ride, I trucked it toward Baggage Claim 9.² And there we were, The YA Muses, together again. We hopped in our borrowed Jeep³ and aimed toward Estes Park – our home for the following two nights.⁴

² Logistics were critical: We’d all arranged our flights to come in around the same time. Donna, offered to pick us up and selected a pre-determined, easy-to-find meeting spot. These little things go a long way. Believe me – I’ve been to other retreats where the stress of the details nearly did me in.

³ Plenty of space for us and the bags, though we were warned that coming back home we better not have any food leftover…or I was going to have to ride on the roof rack. I hate being the rookie in the group.

⁴ I so wish this could’ve been a longer retreat. But this is what worked into everyone’s crazy, busy schedules.

Friday. 11am. On the drive, Donna outlined a plan for the afternoon: straight to the cabin, make/eat sandwiches, write, fun, write, eat, critique… but we could adjust that as necessary.⁵ We loved the itinerary so we headed up the mountain and got to the good stuff.⁶

⁵ The sign of a great cruise director: A schedule – with flexibility.    

⁶ a.k.a talking about writing, books, and all that stuff your average spouse/friend/coworker understands very little about. Be warned: these conversations can consume DAYS if you let them, but (as Katy said) car rides/meals/hikes are great times to dive in.

Friday. 12:30pm. The views at the cabin were breathtaking. The air was clear. If we stopped chatting, there was only silence.⁷ Starving, we tore into the lunch spread: all the fixin’s for sammies…yep, even hummus.⁸ Stuffed, we corralled for Writing Time. We verbalized our goals, set a timer, plugged into our iCaves (a.k.a music), and set to work.

⁷Ok, mostly silence. Every so often there’d be an Elk bugling, which sounds very much like a high-pitched-dino-squeal out of JURASSIC PARK. And, take my word, Donna did a fantastic demo so we’d know what to be listening for.

⁸Or whatever them veggie-tar-ians eat…actually, this is a good point. Our cruise director provided options that could accommodate the group without being overly complex. After all, food is merely writing fuel.

Friday. 4:30pm. The timer went off. As we finished our goals (or came within spittin’ distance), we congregated on the porch for more talk and opportunities to hear Elk.⁹ Eventually, we piled into the Jeep and Donna took us on an ole’ fashioned safari.^{10, 11}  

⁹This is one of those rewards Donna spoke of.

¹⁰In which we witnessed (in no particular order of importance): A coyote, deer, a tetherball court, some kinky Elk rituals, and Bret laughing so hard he almost peed his pants.

¹¹Can’t tell you how important it was to get out of the house for a little bit.

Friday. 7pm. We welcomed the personal pizza bar.¹² With a roaring fire, we followed the meal with wine, mini-cupcakes, and a read-aloud critique session with our new projects.^12.5 By 10:30pm, some of us curled into bed and others stayed up way past our bedtimes watching the stars, talking, or tackling a little more writing.¹³

¹²Again with the delicious, all-encompassing meals.

^12.5Be jealous. Be very jealous. These ladies are genius.

¹³Veronica. Is. A. Machine.

Saturday. All Day. We devoured some great homemade pancakes¹⁴ and then got to work. The day was gloomy with spots of rain. Perfect writing weather.¹⁵ The coffee, tea, and snacks¹⁶ kept us productive. By 2:30pm, brains were fried. Back into the Jeep for another safari. On the car-ride to the spectacular Bear Lake, we locked down Blog topics for the next several months.¹⁷ After a break in the storm, we hiked to the lake, and then headed home for more (you guessed it) writing time.

¹⁴Do you notice a food-trend yet?

¹⁵When you’re picking a spot, you want places where you can get out, but not where you have to be out the whole time. Sorry again about Hawaii, Katy.

¹⁶Bring lots and lots.

¹⁷ There’s some great ones in the queue. Stay tuned.

Saturday. Night. We take Donna out to a nice dinner on the local river.¹⁸ Then back to the cabin for more reading, s’mores, wine, laughing, and conversation. We all stayed up way-too-late, not wanting the night to end.

¹⁸It was the LEAST we could do for all of her hard cruise directing.

Sunday. Morning. We checked out of the cabin, grabbed breakfast, and hiked to a nice waterfall. We found a local coffee shop and took over their biggest table for a few more hours at the grindstone.  Too soon, we left for the airport¹⁹ and made the long trek back to the gate. I touched down around 7pm, tired, though oddly recharged, and totally excited to see my family. It’d only been a weekend, but a jam-packed, productive one.²⁰

¹⁹And had a great time rehashing all the jokes and talking about our future plans – including where the next retreat will be!

²⁰And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Can't wait until NEXT time!