Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

Last weekend was awesome. Had my birthday on Saturday, and Clevenger came into town, both to help me celebrate, and to allow the two of us to review all of our Beta Read results together in person. We got a ton of work done, easily 48 hours of work put in over the course of four days. We accomplished probably 85% of the editing needed from the Beta Read.

We only had one real issue from our time together. We were working in north Alabama, in record high heat waves, in a post- pandemic that is refusing to budge on workers wages. This means that we were having to hop around to various coffee shops, book stores, libraries, and gaming stores, finding places as restricted hours of operation and barely functioning air conditioning would allow us a place to work and talk without completely melting.

In a weird accident of timing, that actually brings us to this week’s blog topic: What would be my ideal writer’s vacation or writer’s retreat? Now, I have never been to a writer’s retreat, but I have heard of them. From what I understand, they would be much more advantageous when we are earlier in a writing project, than when in the late stages of a project such as ours. Writer’s retreats sound like they would be more helpful in the developmental stage, rather than the editing stage. Plus, having to read out my own unedited writing to total strangers sounds horrifying!

This brings me to the idea of a writer’s vacation. Since I write with Clevenger, I picture something like this past weekend, just in a more planned, more comfortable environment. If it is just the two of us, give me a nice cabin up in the mountains, preferably in late spring or autumn. Mild short sleeve days, chilly fireplace nights, and no internet to interfere and distract. Mid afternoon walks to discuss new ideas and hours of prompting one another to stay on track. Amazing vistas to promote the imagination. A nice pot of homemade beef stew simmering in a cast iron pot in the kitchen, to be dipped into a will.

The alternate to this would be for a solo writer’s vacation, or if Clevenger decides he wants to bring his family along. Back around 2011 or so, I went on my first and (so far) only cruise on Royal Caribbean. It was an amazing experience and I have wanted to go on another ever since. In late 2019 I started looking into the option of a second cruise, but we all know what happened there.

It would be amazing to sit at a table in the shade with Clevenger, both of us on our laptops, the sprawling panorama of the open ocean before us, as we work on churning out chapters. Or alone, whatever. No internet to distract me, but all the drink refills and meals I might need, all with no preparation or cleanup expected of me. Give me a bit of time, and I will make this happen. In fact, I could easily see myself making this an annual option, finances willing. Haha.

So there you have it. This last weekend was amazing. It was just inconvenient that we did not have a consistent, comfortable work location. But give it time. I think this is something that Clevenger and I are going to make more of a priority in the future. Just a hunch.

And on a last note, as you can see from the post image, Clevenger gave me the most wonderful, insane birthday present. He went through a print on demand company, and purchased hard back copies of our Beta Reader manuscript for each of us. How amazing is that?

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham