So as much as I will miss it, I'm going to take a pass on the Glen Lake Writing Camp Heaven Summer Retreat this year. Instead, I'm going to spend the week in splendid isolation (or incoherent mindless mental meltdown) at a "camp" in da U.P. I will miss the socialization of Glen Lake, and yet I will be free of it and the group meetings that take up much of the days there. The third week of June (more like the fourth week this year) is pretty much my only really productive writing time of the year. I need it all, every minute of it.
I did this a few years ago. The week is mine, and now esp. with a wife, an 86-year-old mother, and a increasingly senile geriatric cat, it's the only week I get for this kind of activity. So the last time I went up on Glen Lake Saturday, settled in at the camp, and within four days I'd pretty much lost all my (admittedly limited) social skills. It took a trip to Houghton and Calumet and a visit with a friend (and some heavy drinking) to get some of them back. If I don't visit with Duane this year, I may be a drooling, unkempt, incoherent schizophrenic by the time I (hopefully) drop in on the regular retreaters at Glen Lake for a Friday night reintroduction to civilization.
While there, writing in the old shack on the edge of Lake Arfelin, I will probably be hunkered down with drinks, snacks and tunes. How does that jibe with anyone else's personal writing styles? Total concentration, or are occasional distractions tolerable? Do you need open-minded friends close at hand as sounding boards ? Total silence, or heavy metal hammering the ear buds? TV on or off? Sugar, caffeine, or alcohol? None of the abo
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I can write in lots of places and atmospheres. Music is good--especially to get me going. But once I am really writing, I don't hear it anymore. I prefer less distractions. Being a talker (I know, shock!), I have a hard time not participating in conversations that are going on around me. Hence the necessity of music.
I suppose I'd get more written if I went someplace all by myself. But I get a lot more than just writing at Glen Lake. Being surrounded by writers and so much creative energy energizes me. My brain feeds off it. It validates me as a writer. And feedback every day keeps me honest as well. : )
Both sound absolutely wonderful. I like the camaraderie of Glen Lake, though I've never been in June, but being alone in a cabin sounds marvelous too. I could use a week of solitude to search my soul and try to rediscover my muse. My writing has really been in the crapper lately. I can't seem to find anything new to write about and I find myself rehashing the same pieces. It's not that I'm not doing anything--planting food plots, cutting wood, etc--I just can't get myself out of the piece. It sounds like it's about me rather than about habitat for example. But then, not a lot of guys work on habitat as much as I do.
One of the guys from the beagle club told me I had a nice place to run trials: lots of rabbits, brush piles, briar patches, wild areas, etc. I've been working on wildlife projects for over 20 years. Good habitat doesn't just happen.
Good luck to everyone at their retreats.
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