More on Retreats and Mini-retreats

Every morning, I participate in my writing ritual --  I write this blog and try to get my writing goal done for the day (somewhere between 1000 and 2000 words unless I get to a difficult part). Early mornings are my time -- it's 6:20 AM Central Daylight Time and I've been up for an hour.

You also know that, every now and then, I need a writing retreat -- somewhere with a unique atmosphere, someplace that's a Place. Someplace that's preferably a short drive so that precious writing time isn't eaten away by driving time.

My favorite retreat: Starved Rock Lodge. Admittedly, one of its draws is that I grew up near there. However, being a national-park level log and shingle lodge hidden in a state park doesn't hurt, either. The Great Hall, with its varnished logs and towering ceilings and comfortable chairs and eclectic visitors, stimulates the imagination like little else. I will not be going home this Christmas, to my heartbreak, because in my opinion, Starved Rock Lodge is the epitome of Christmas -- for locals as well as for travelers, including the Jewish families from Chicagoland who have reunions there.

One of my other favorite retreats: The Elms Hotel and Spa in Excelsior Springs, MO. A massive stone-and-wood building in a neo-Tudor style on the outside, the inside harks back to the 1920's with parquetry floors and dark wood. It's not hard to imagine that it was the stopping place of gangsters and their molls from Kansas City. One time there, I happened to mention to our waitress that I was on a writers' retreat and she let Richard and I use an unused part of the restaurant, complete with a couch and a sleek black fireplace for ambiance. She also kept us supplied with coffee (thank you, Laura Sanders!) The bonus: Using the spa, for a massage and an afternoon in the Grotto, which features comfortable lounge chairs, a sauna, a steam room, a whirlpool, a steam shower, and an icy shower. Even if you can't afford the massage, the Grotto alone -- $25 a day -- works to help clear a writer's mind.

Sometimes my husband and I can't afford (timewise, money-wise, or both) a weekend retreat, so we take a day retreat rather than go to a cookie cutter corporate coffeehouse. One exception on corporate coffeehouses -- our local Starbucks is located in the campus library, a spacious and warm space which only needs a fireplace to be perfect in its atmosphere. "Meet me at Starbucks" may be the most welcoming phrase you'd hear on campus, and I hold my Friday office hours there. But because it's so familiar, I don't use it for a serious "get in the writing mood" space.

Today, we're travelling 45 miles to a writing space in St. Joe, Missouri. There are two coffeehouses in St. Joe, and although neither of them are Starbucks, one of them works better as a writing space than the other. Hazel's, the one I don't take writing mini-retreats at, has good coffee, but has the ambiance of the gift shop at a Cracker Barrel -- lots of gifts for sale scattered across shelves and surfaces -- lots of visual stimulation I can do without. The other coffeehouse -- Mokaska -- is closer to downtown, and has a spacious and old-building look to it: high punched-tin ceilings, exposed ductwork and scaffolding for lights, and old woodwork at the counter. We're going to Mokaska.

Would it be cheaper to have a writing retreat in the home? Yes, but we don't really have a good room for it. There's the dining room, which has the ambiance of the Christmas tree we never took down, but the 20's era dining table proves to be awkward to use a laptop on. There's the spare bedroom of our circa 1919 home, but it's long and narrow and full of bookshelves and Richard's Star Trek ship collection, so the ambiance it provides could best be called "claustrophobic". My normal writing place is on the couch in the living room with my laptop and a computer desk. All fine and good, unless I need a change of scenery, and then I retreat.

Have a happy Saturday (Friday? Sunday?) all!