Stories From the Cabin in the Woods

You know those writer retreats, where you sit in a comfortable cabin with nothing but a laptop and some Wifi, and crank out your work-in-progress in utter solitude, looking out over a beautiful backwoods landscape, with no spouse, no kids, no responsibilities other than to dream and write it down?

This is writer porn.

Not in the sense of it being an immoral act, but in the sense that people don't really write most stories that way.

It's a beautiful, seductive dream. "Someday, when the time is right, I'll turn out something really special..."

If I thought this way, I'd still be waiting to start writing. And probably have gone insane while waiting.

My stories won't wait for the beautiful seduction of the cabin in the woods. They want out now. They knock on my head and nag me - What are you waiting for? Those kids are big enough to feed themselves. Exercise is pointless - you're going to die anyway.

Now, I don't take counsel from nagging stories, obviously - my kids haven't starved to death, and I do exercise now and then. But I also write, and I write in very small bursts every day. Between tasks. Lunch break. In the bathroom. While the family's eating dinner. During my commute.

After one or two days, I get nervous and irritable if I don't write at all. I have to write every day now, and in a lot of ways it helps me cope when the world goes crazy.

And one novel, one memoir, one published children's story, 18 short stories, and hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts, letters, poems, and journal entries later, I love having written, even if the writing was never pulled from a relaxed, peaceful setting with long leisurely hours of time to do nothing else.

Don't get me wrong - if I ever do get the chance to play eccentric-hermit-in-the-woods, you bet I'm jumping at it. My little introvert heart couldn't resist such a chance.

Just not waiting until then...got a cabin already in my mind, wherever I am. :-)