Retreat | PENNED PENNIES

Dinner at Zaytoon. From left: me, Anthony, Ari, Andrea. Photo by Cynthia.

At the MUG Santa Barbara Retreat this past weekend, I spent all of Saturday writing away with my writers group. Critiques and writing prompts broke stretches of solo writing. We went out for dinner at 9pm. My favorite part, along with the company and the food, was a little game we played in which we suggested actors who fit each other’s characters. The main contender for my novel’s protagonist was Amanda Seyfried, except with brown hair and eyes.

During the focused writing, we sat together in silence and focused on our own work. The only sound in the room was the tapping of laptop keys. Every now and then someone would break the silence to ask, “how do you spell…” or “what’s another word for…” like that.

In the afternoon we wrote to prompts. Someone would explain the prompt, we would write, and then we’d go around and share. I’ve been so entrenched in revision that writing rough and fast was refreshing. In one prompt we each wrote down a profession on a piece of paper and passed it to the person on our right. We wrote using the beginning, “I have the hands of a…” After five minutes, we were told to begin the second section with: “But I’m not a…” That gave most of us a challenge! My piece of paper said “physicist” so mine was challenging anyway, since I know few, if any, details of that profession (let alone their hands).

We also went over my query and the first five pages of my manuscript. Several of them have read this book in all its iterations, and they stick with me no matter how tired they might be of reading it over and over again! I feel so lucky to have the support of this group of talented, intelligent, and creative people. My writing wouldn’t be the same without them.