back from Gettysburg
Yes, I realize I never mentioned that I was going to Gettysburg, PA with some writer friends (including 5/6ths of Altered Fluid), but I didn't realize that our writing retreat was going to become a full retreat from the "information superhighway" and I wouldn't be able to blog, or check e-mail, or procrastinate endlessly on Wikipedia.
We had two houses, a modified barn which supposedly had internet access but blocked cell phone service because the walls were lined with adamantium, and a larger house with a manageable cell phone signal but no wireless internet. We soon discovered that the internet connection slowed considerably when more than one person attempted to use it, then crapped out entirely because the farm has a limit on daily usage--which we quickly exhausted. Some of took better to this than others. Some of us needed to be online to work.
I was more or less happy to give up the constant distraction of checking e-mail and blogs while writing, and had a far more productive time for the five days of our exile for it. My only connection to the outside world were phone calls to feiran and intermittent Twittering to show I hadn't been killed by vengeful Civil War spirits or enraged cows.
I finally got all my research in order and put in another 5000 words or so on the novel, while figuring out why it isn't working as well as I would like. I finished revising a short story collaboration with mercuriodrivera. When I took breaks, instead of reading the internet I read some of the books I brought with me, including the brilliant and geeky The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Inexcusable by Chris Lynch, and Ordinary Ghosts by Eireann Corrigan. I played a little Mario Kart DS with rajankhanna. We went on a personal tour of the vast Gettysburg battlefield. We watched Lost, BSG, and a couple of movies. We went for pleasant night walks under the stars. We hunted for ghosts. I slept not much.
It was a lot of fun hanging out with an amazing group of friends and writers and I felt lucky all week that I knew these cool people. Now I'm back at home and happy to sleep in my own bed, though I'm not looking forward to returning to work and the daily grind tomorrow; I took today off, and it feels like the snow days of old. I've made an attempt to catch up on everything I've missed online in the last five days, but I'm giving that up as a lost cause. (Let me know if I've missed anything important!) It would take me all day to read LJ, and I'd rather start with a fresh slate. It would not be a bad thing if I could start spending less time online from now on.
Pictures from the trip are sure to follow once I catch up on a few other things at home.
We had two houses, a modified barn which supposedly had internet access but blocked cell phone service because the walls were lined with adamantium, and a larger house with a manageable cell phone signal but no wireless internet. We soon discovered that the internet connection slowed considerably when more than one person attempted to use it, then crapped out entirely because the farm has a limit on daily usage--which we quickly exhausted. Some of took better to this than others. Some of us needed to be online to work.
I was more or less happy to give up the constant distraction of checking e-mail and blogs while writing, and had a far more productive time for the five days of our exile for it. My only connection to the outside world were phone calls to feiran and intermittent Twittering to show I hadn't been killed by vengeful Civil War spirits or enraged cows.
I finally got all my research in order and put in another 5000 words or so on the novel, while figuring out why it isn't working as well as I would like. I finished revising a short story collaboration with mercuriodrivera. When I took breaks, instead of reading the internet I read some of the books I brought with me, including the brilliant and geeky The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Inexcusable by Chris Lynch, and Ordinary Ghosts by Eireann Corrigan. I played a little Mario Kart DS with rajankhanna. We went on a personal tour of the vast Gettysburg battlefield. We watched Lost, BSG, and a couple of movies. We went for pleasant night walks under the stars. We hunted for ghosts. I slept not much.
It was a lot of fun hanging out with an amazing group of friends and writers and I felt lucky all week that I knew these cool people. Now I'm back at home and happy to sleep in my own bed, though I'm not looking forward to returning to work and the daily grind tomorrow; I took today off, and it feels like the snow days of old. I've made an attempt to catch up on everything I've missed online in the last five days, but I'm giving that up as a lost cause. (Let me know if I've missed anything important!) It would take me all day to read LJ, and I'd rather start with a fresh slate. It would not be a bad thing if I could start spending less time online from now on.
Pictures from the trip are sure to follow once I catch up on a few other things at home.