It is Thursday, my third day of a five and a half day writing retreat.  In the first two days, I revamped the memoir I have been working on for nine years, and I have the draft I have been trying to get to for a long time.  I discovered that I had to start with what I had on page 50, and moving that scene to the front made everything else fall into place (or out of the book–I wish I could keep the anecdote about my uncle’s passive aggressive smoking when my aunt had to quit cold turkey after heart attack, but it just doesn’t fit).

So now I am going to do what I said I would do this summer:  create a social media platform.  I welcome advice, particular advice on Instagram hashtags.  I don’t want to go on Twitter.  Maybe I could be convinced.  A writer I respect swears by it, and she doesn’t seem like what I think of as what seems toxic about Twitter.

I am going to type up some work for this blog.  Ironically, I can’t post excerpts from my book manuscript, but hey, there are plenty of good deleted scenes I could post!  So much chaff!

Four days ago I didn’t think I could budge my memoir into shape.  Now I have the best draft of its long journey.  Just because I got to come here, and focus just on this.  Amazing.

Patchwork Farm Writing Retreat, Westhampton, Massachusetts