Writing Retreat!!!

By the time you read this, I'll be in a car, my daughter and I will be driving 8 hours from home in Illinois to northwest Michigan. My darling teenager goes to Music Camp every year for a one-week institute. I go and spend the whole week in a hotel nearby (requested by the kid in case she get's homesick/breaks a leg/just needs to know I'm 20 minutes away) for a self-imposed writing retreat.

And I can't wait. Just me and my laptop in a hotel room, writing, for a whole week. Without the usual interruptions:

• No house to clean. Maybe I should repeat that. NO HOUSE TO CLEAN;
• No pets who want outside, followed immediately with wanting inside, then outside again. I really should install a remote controlled sliding glass door;
• No 'emergency' trips to the grocery store because the 14 yr. old is out of  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop Tarts, or to take the 16 yr. old to the movies/girlfriends' house/mall because she'll 'die' if she has to spend one more minute in this house (this usually means her uncanny sixth sense has alerted her to possible, impending yard work);
• No house to clean.
• No one interrupting me to ask 'what's for dinner,' or 'when is dinner' or 'can we have McDonalds?' - usually followed by 'will you drive to McDonalds?'

Instead, it's:

• Lots and lots of quiet writing time with nothing to interrupt it but breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks and dinner (usually followed by snacks);
• Lots of the snacks I like - not the stuff I only eat because my kids won't (don't ask me how many times I've had to eat what they insisted they needed, only to develop a sudden hatred for that thing once halfway through the bag);
• When I need a break from writing, no one to interrupt me reading or knitting or just staring into space with, 'oh good, you're done! can you drive me to.../cook for me.../find my.../let the dogs in and out and in again?'
• Someone comes in and cleans the room for me every day. EVERY DAY.

Does it get lonely spending 24/7 by myself?

No. Not ever. Sorry family. I need this. If I don't get this, I might kill all of you.

And the best thing this year? My daughter has her learner's permit (we're 3 weeks away from getting the full driver's license - much to my horror and weirdly, relief) so I don't have to drive the whole 8 hours, each way.

Of course, I have to produce. I have to justify this trip financially by having a supernatural amount of pages done when I get back. But that's probably the best part.

Well, right behind the maid service and snacks, that is.