{"id":8200,"date":"2023-01-16T09:21:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=8200"},"modified":"2023-01-16T09:26:17","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:26:17","slug":"ninth-annual-writing-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2023\/01\/16\/ninth-annual-writing-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninth Annual Writing Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The end of 2022 was a bit of a blur. With the holidays, a busy time at work, and the annual November<\/a> and December<\/a> episodes of Not About Lumberjacks<\/a>, I never got around to writing about the 9th annual writing retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Retreat that Almost Wasn’t<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 8th annual retreat<\/a> was a return to East Texas after skipping a year because of the COVID pandemic. The 9th annual<\/em> retreat was looking like it might have been skipped because my friend Deacon and I were both very busy with day job work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we made the decision to schedule something <\/em>for 2022 — work and preparation be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n

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November Retreat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 2022 retreat took place at Cooper Lake State Park<\/a> from November 13 – 15. It was our first fall retreat (we usually schedule things for April or May). We always wanted to do a retreat in cooler weather, and we got more than we planned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a colder-than-usual weekend, and we were right on the lake. With the wind and rain, it made holing up and writing easier than usual…although evenings were clear enough to sit beside a fire.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“Why Don’t We Wait Here, See What Happens”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On the coldest night, it was misty, windy, and felt like 34 degrees. Miserable<\/em> (but fun).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We joked about how it was like the ending of John Carpenter’s The Thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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