MARY LAMPHERE AUTHOR

Is that even a question?

I don’t care what your passions are, if you have the opportunity to step off the spinning merry-go-round of daily duties that is your life and spend uninterrupted days pursuing said passions– of course you should retreat!

I just spent four glorious days and three nights in New Glarus, WI at the Duerst Guest House, a 1914 brick farm house with all the amenities for retreating.

As an honorary member of the Hi-Rev Writers, I joined three other dedicated wordsmiths as we read, wrote, and edited.

Celebrating our third trip to this location, upon arrival, we settled into our comfortable spaces and got to work. We took timely breaks to eat, drink, laugh, and occasionally sleep.

We take a lot of laugh breaks. We are very funny people.
New this year– if something was particularly true, memorable, or riotous, we’d write it on the white board and take a picture. For posterity and hilarity.

Our time together is as essential as our solo time at the keyboard. We talk about our stories: our progress, our stumbling blocks, and our goals of publication. We discuss what makes us proud and what worries us. We explore our pasts, our plans, and our presence.

We sing, we dance, we rap. Sometimes we Haiku. We are friggin’ hysterical.

Then we get back to work. Reinvigorated, inspired, and focused.

It’s hard to be away. We miss our families; our responsibilities accumulate in our absence (and occasionally interrupt). Four days is a lot of time! Four days is nothin’!

46,000 edited words later, it’s time to go home. That’s 46,000 edited words I would have never gotten through at home in four days.

Cheers to the Retreat! 
You can put that on the board.