Winter writing retreat

Well, it’s been a energized couple of weeks at my winter writing retreat at Lake Cumberland. 

I was hoping getting extended solo time in a retreat atmosphere would get this project moving onto the next level.  I think it has.  Who knows when the thing will be completed and how I get the thing published, but right now I am on the cusp of putting the whole, lovely narrative in written record.  

The journey to get to this point has been a joyful burden.  I ingested the whole enchilada, hook and all, upon visiting Hog Island for the first time in 1981.  I had just been smitten by Emily Dickinson the academic quarter prior when I took a graduate workshop under Jim Hughes at Wright State.  All of this has changed my life and still has me under its spell.

Still, I am chagrined to see entries here at The Dressy Adventuress blog dated months and even years apart with seemingly little progress.  Such disappoints me, but I trudge on. 

As of now, I have reconsidered the lengthy book outline constructed a year or longer ago.  Back then I concluded along with mentor David Dominic that I could work on any of the six planned chapters at any time by just picking a topic that seemed timely (based on current reading) and go for it.  I would do that for a week or so — then all would fall silent for weeks or months while life reasserted itself back into my days — and I would just shake my head wondering if this book would ever be finished.  

But then now and again I would get an email or a clipping from someone who is a Hog Island or Mabel Loomis Todd fan, wishing me well on my writing journey, saying they were eager to see what I come up with.  To all of you who have reached out to me in this often frustrating endeavor, I say, thank you. 

So sometime mid- to late-2013, I figured the January/February 2014 timeframe would be important to The Dressy Adventuress progress.  And, I concluded, based on writing and/or life advice resurrected in my brain from some unknown source, if a body wants a different result, something has to change.  I figured the best thing I could do for this writing project was to sequester myself somewhere so I could dedicate days and weeks in a row to grappling with this large and complex puzzle I have been blessed with assembling. 

As it turns out, a former student and good buddy Shannon Wood had just the sterling opportunity I was wishing for.  Shannon and her partner had purchased a rustic, but updated, cabin along a ridge road on the south side Lake Cumberland not too far from the Kentucky-Tennessee state line.  Shannon was proud of the purchase, and since she knew Cindy Lou and me as authentic Nature fans (Shannon and I walked to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon back in the day), she was eager for us to come down to see what she and Sabrina had discovered. 

Well, to make a long story short, the two girls who had both fallen in love with Lake Cumberland, had purchased a second property, this one an income-producing lakefront summer rental.  Gallons of paint later and with a touch of updating, the Lakeview House was ready for business summer 2013.  And a good summer for rentals, it was.  

Still, the house was, indeed, a summer property.  How would Shannon and Sabrina feel about my borrowing the place for winter 2014?  As it turned out, the gracious and generous pair offered me use of the house as the writing retreat I had hoped for.  I’ve been at Cumberland for just over a week now with about five weeks to go.  

So I got my wish.  Now it is time to produce. 

Just after New Years, I drove my small SUV fully freighted with books collected, binders of reading notes, and outlines constructed over time to Cumberland for a rebirth of this project.  After a few days of getting into the rhythm of regular writing, I was frustrated with little progress.  

It was after a morning of ‘storming’ that I sat at my Mac with the intent of making The Dressy Adventuress sound more like a narrative and less like a history treatment.  By the end of that day late last week, I had a fifteen page sequence of narrative that I felt pretty pleased about. The time had come to put the story on paper. 

I had begun telling this story a handful of times already, as the gentle reader of this blog already knows.  Now it was my goal to produce at least 500 words a day of narrative as was recommended by Martha Vicinus, a retired distinguished faculty member in women’s studies from University of Michigan and a Friend of Hog Island volunteer who shared pot scrubbing responsibilities with me a couple summers ago in the Audubon camp kitchen.  

And that’s pretty much where I am as I write this.  My goal is to get the minimum 500 words on paper every day, a recommendation Dr. Vicinus gave graduate students who were struggling with writing dissertations.  Yesterday  I got to just over 1600 words of story exposition, trying to find a way to hook my reader into wanting to know more about Mabel Loomis Todd and her contributions to the world of Emily Dickinson, but more importantly her efforts to enhance a deeper appreciation of Nature based on years of summers spent at her Camp Mavooshen on Hog Island.  

This is hard, you know?  ;-) 

And, as Dr. Vicinus advised, expect to write at least ten updated drafts of the story.  

In the words of Uncle George, Oh, myyy…

image:  The Plan:  The new narrative outline sees the light of day.