And I mean that literally.  Sort of.

This weekend my local RWA chapter held our yearly writer’s retreat.  About twenty of us spend the weekend at a secluded resort type place where we hold workshops and bond in our writing insanity.  When we’re not talking craft or bonding, we’re writing. 

On the first day we all set writing goals for the weekend.  It can be anything from writing one sentence to writing one hundred pages.  Because I was psyched and ready to go, I set the goal of twenty-five pages.  *waits for everyone to stop laughing then continues*

I’ve been stuck on the same scene for a couple of weeks now.  It’s actually a pivotal part of my story where my hero and heroine, who have each vowed to avoid the other, realize they must work together.  If I blow this scene, I could lose my readers completely and my story is dead in the water.  No pressure, right?

My first attempt came from the heroine’s POV.  Four pages in I realized it wasn’t working.  *delete delete delete*  My second attempt came from the hero’s POV, but three pages in it wasn’t working either.  *delete delete delete*  At this point I was sitting at negative two pages for the weekend.  Now you get where the retreat part comes in.  I took it a little too literally.

The common denominator in both of these attempts was the fact it started with the heroine being late for work.  So when I started my third attempt, I took this aspect out and the scene practically wrote itself.  Turns out, my heroine flat out refused to be late for work.  If she had just told me this weeks ago, it could have saved both of us a lot of stress.

All in all, I had a great weekend.  We laughed our butts off (sadly mine grew back), we cried out our frustrations, and we challenged ourselves to keep going.  Writing is a solitary pursuit.  But thanks to the internet and writing organizations like the Romance Writers of America, we can be solitary together. 

If you’re a writer, do you belong to your local chapter or an online chapter?  If you’re a reader, have you found a book club in your area where you can share your love for a good story?  Maybe it’s quilting or scrapbooking. Tell us about your group and if you don’t have one, what kind of group would you like to find?