Our local chapter of Romance Writers of America^® has a combination writing challenge and chapter fund raiser that we call “I Will Write a Book.” Any member entering submits the title of her Work in Progress and five dollars by June 30. The challenge is to then submit the last page of the completed manuscript by November 30. All who finish have their names entered in the drawing for the cash award. The chapter gets one half of the cash entry fees; the drawing winner gets the other. There is nothing like a cash payday to get a writer motivated.

Along about November 1^st, the procrastinators among us suddenly realize time is running out—thirty days to deadline. Other writers have already submitted their last pages. We have several chapters yet to go and may not finish in time. The horror!

You may have already surmised that I was among the procrastinators. Never fear. I determined to buckle down and make it to the finish line.

I advised Macho Guy that in the month of November, while I was trying to finish my manuscript by the deadline, the dinner menus would be sparse in the category of culinary delights. Only dishes that took minimal preparation time would grace our dinner table. Pizza (from the supermarket frozen food department), chili, fried chicken take out, Chinese take out, Deli take out, canned soup and salad, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, PB&Js, and anything he might choose to cook while I wrote, etc. He suffered in silence, thank heaven.

As the days went by, I became more and more driven to finish the damn book. I started skipping little things to have more writing time. I showered and shampooed every other day, then every third day, then every fifth day, and finally only on Sundays before church. Showering and shampooing took up too much time when I could have been writing. I skipped exercising for the same reason, and I skipped lunch when MG wasn’t at home.

The most important item of all that I did without was enough sleep. I got less and less as the month wore on. At first, I stayed up about an hour past my usual bedtime, and then it was two hours past, then three, then four, and finally five hours past bedtime on the last two nights before deadline. During the last week of November, I was getting between four and five hours sleep a night. I don’t know how Einstein and Edison managed it.

The main reason I got so little sleep is that Schnoodle Dog never lets me sleep past 8:30 a.m. most mornings, even on the morning after a late night of writing. MG taught the little guy to wake me in the morning when he was just a pup. Schnoodle Dog takes his job very seriously, and MG appears to take perverse pleasure in seeing the little guy rub his cold wet nose on my face. ::shudder::

Well, I finished the damn book, but sleep deprivation took its toll. I was so exhausted Tuesday morning that I never made it out of my pajamas and had to take a nap that afternoon. I couldn’t bear to sit at the computer for another day of writing, so I postponed writing my blog post for a day. It was for the best. My brain was mush. I actually had trouble thinking and remembering. I believe I lost half my vocabulary—temporarily. It found its way back home today.

I’m afraid to read the last two chapters of the manuscript. I have the nagging suspicion that as sleep deprived as I was, I most likely wrote crap there at the end. That isn’t the worst of it. I had to slap all the chapters together into one document file and paginate it so I could submit that last numbered page. I discovered that my manuscript is too long—195 pages too long. I have a bit of cutting to do before revisions and polish. O joy.

I participated in a getaway with a group of writers this past weekend. Ours was a different kind of weekend getaway—a working weekend getaway. The getaway part involved removing ourselves from the typical household distractions writers—women writers in particular—encounter on a daily basis. We left our homes and their distractions behind beginning on a Friday afternoon, and then our “Write In” began.

There were twelve weekend warrior writers in all. Once we arrived at Lily Hill Farm Bed and Breakfast, our huge yet cozy retreat venue for the weekend, the first order of business involved setting our writing goals for the weekend. Everyone’s goals were posted; there would be accountability. We were there to write and write we did. We helped one another too, doing a bit of brainstorming here and there.

Everyone eschewed the formal and fashionable and adopted the casual and comfortable. Baggy clothes we would never wear in public and sneakers or fuzzy sleep socks and slippers were the order of the day.

Some of us didn’t bother to apply makeup—it was Halloween weekend, so no one was the least bit frightened. Some of us unapologetically sported bed hair in the morning. Some of us didn’t bother to take time out to shower when they could use the time to write instead.

We ate and drank whenever and whatever we wanted. We had no curfew. We wrote as much or as little as we were able, alone in our rooms or in the common areas beside someone else. Not once did we watch television. I doubt anyone missed it. I didn’t.

Our intrepid group got together at mealtime for food, fun, and fellowship. Trust me when I say we ate well. Too well. We all brought way too much food from home to share during the write in, all of it too delicious to pass up. [It’s been three days, and I still haven’t mustered the courage to step onto my bathroom scale.]

Our room assignments varied, as did the unique room layouts. A few had their own private rooms. Others of us had roommates. My roommate and I were in Treehouse 1, aptly named because the room was on the second floor up a long ::gasp:: seemingly endless flight of stairs. That may have been a good thing because going up and down those stairs was the only exercise we got all weekend, a break from sitting on our hind ends for hours while we wrote.

The write in was a huge success, at once energizing and relaxing, productive and fun. I’m delighted and proud to report that the members of our group either met their stated goals [I met mine!] or achieved at least seventy percent worth. All of us were sorry to see the weekend come to an end and wanted to stay longer. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to make it an annual event.

Given the laid back ambiance of our write in weekend, in many respects it strikes me that it could very well be the literary and slightly more refined equivalent of a hunter’s deer camp. Or not.