Authors on The Road Day 2

Day 2 from beautiful Galena, Illinois.

Liz here… We slept pretty well last night, considering we weren’t in our own beds. We do have those fireplaces in our rooms, which have a lovely mesmerizing affect. At least until the timer goes off and the fire goes out.

We were up pretty early this morning, ramping up our word counts and talking about what we would do this afternoon and what we needed to do with our works-in-progress. Oh, and we ate some stuff. And drank some stuff. And talked some more.

This is the exciting, dramatic stuff writing retreats are made of.

We had a good late lunch at Durty Gurt’s Burger Joynt in Galena, then went hill-climbing trying to get close enough to look at some gorgeous old brick houses. Actually, we were in the car, but it is a hilly town. Tomorrow, I think we’re going to go and see Ulysses S. Grant’s house.

We have about decided that we need to take longer retreats because we can no longer maintain our usual schedule of 18 hours on and six hours off. By 9:00 p.m., I’m pretty much fried. Our foray around Galena’s extensive downtown area ended with one of us saying, “You wanna go in here?” and the other one saying, “I don’t care. Do you?” And then we would keep walking. While I miss the energy level we used to muster, I’m enjoying our more relaxed pace now.

Nan’s new story is sounding better with each conversation about “Will that work? What’s next?” Mine’s creeping along, but I’m having some fun with it. Dewey from my story is in Vermont now, one of my favorite places in the world, and I’m thinking she just might find her second chance there.

I love that about what we do. No matter what the themes or plots of our stories are, people in them get second chances. We all need them sometimes, don’t we?

Well, the tea water’s hot and we just started the fire again. Nan will be back with you tomorrow with more tales from the Writers On the Road.

Have a good day. Be nice to somebody.

Liz & Nan