Overall, I had a great time on my writing retreat.  I managed to relax AND get a lot  of writing done on not one, but two novels…and a screenplay.

I accomplished my major goals for the two-week period. I received some major signs and confirmations from the Universe.

I can’t wait to do it again.

BUT…it wasn’t perfect.

I’m not telling you this because I’m complaining. I’m sharing what went wrong because I hate when people only share the “positives”.  It paints an unrealistic picture that some people live perfect lives and I don’t want to do that.

I don’t love traveling by myself. I do it because I hate staying home even more, but in a “perfect” world, I’d have someone to go with; a significant other or a friend.  But that wasn’t to be. ((shrug))

For the Georgia part of my stay, the RV I was staying in wasn’t balanced correctly, so I battled motion sickness the whole time. (Luckily, because I tend to over-prepare, I’d brought Dramamine with me, but that makes me groggy.)

And I set off the carbon monoxide detector in the middle of the night because I’d turned off the roaring fan that was giving me a headache.

And there was a tornado watch.

For the most part it was windy, wet and gloomy while I was there.

As for my North Carolina stay in the tiny house….

The toilet didn’t flush on the day I arrived.

The woman who owned the place sent her adult son over to plunge it.  He complained that his girlfriend was sick. I took “sick” to mean “strung out” since he was pretty obviously needing a fix.

Yeah, that was kind of alarming.

He went to get a “better” plunger from a house fifty yards away and didn’t return for another two hours.  Even then it wasn’t fixed. I had to deal with two plumbers in the space the next day (remember it was a TINY house) but eventually it was fixed.

Also, the outdoor seating area was infested with carpenter bees.  I don’t have much fear of carpenter bees, but they’re big and loud and they scared the dog on a regular basis.

Then we had a couple days of torrential rainfall. (I heard locals say they’d never seen such heavy rain before.)  Not a big deal.

EXCEPT….there were only two places to sit in the tiny house, the wooden chair and the bed. Two days of shifting from one uncomfortable seat to another to write bothered my back.

Plus, the rain triggered an invasion of ants. Which in turn meant I had an exterminator in the space a couple of days later. No big deal, but a little annoying.

And then there was the incident with the bear.

I was out hiking with the dog, on a section of path with precarious footing, when all of the sudden this big ball of black fur came barreling toward us through the trees.

I pretty much had a heart attack.

Again, I don’t have a big fear of black bears, having encountered quite a few over the years when I lived in NJ. I know that normally making noise and waving my arms will keep them away. But since it was springtime, I was afraid it was a momma bear defending her cubs.  (Plus, my dog has never encountered a bear before and I wasn’t sure how she would behave.)

It wasn’t until it was just a few feet away that I realized it wasn’t a bear.  It was a Newfoundland dog.  Now, I love Newfies, but if you’ve never seen one, you have to understand that they’re BIG dogs. They’re about four feet tall and weigh at least 150 pounds. And when they’re running at you through thick vegetation, they totally pass for bears!

So if you ever see me use one in the CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN series, you’ll know that this scare was where I got the inspiration!

Like I said, overall I had a great time. A good part of that was due to my attitude. I was determined to make the best of it.  But that doesn’t mean it was perfect.