{"id":2952,"date":"2013-07-18T22:10:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T02:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=2952"},"modified":"2013-07-19T22:43:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T02:43:01","slug":"a-retreat-of-sorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/a-retreat-of-sorts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Retreat, of Sorts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CSHChair\"

A Chair with a View<\/p><\/div>\n

For the past three weeks, I lived on Long Island at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where my husband was running a course. \u00a0It was a writing retreat of sorts for me, with none of the usual interruptions of life at home, and long, solitary hours with my computer.<\/p>\n

Food was available three times a day in the dining hall, so I had no groceries or dishes to consider. \u00a0No cleaning was needed. \u00a0No chores piled up. \u00a0I felt very spoiled.<\/p>\n

\"Cold

Cold Spring Harbor, NY<\/p><\/div>\n

I came home for a few days in the middle to mow and take care of a few things, and I took the LIRR into the city a few times to meet with people, but otherwise, I spent days (9 am to 10 pm) writing with even more single-minded focus than normal.<\/p>\n

\"Nancy

Nancy Mercado and Caragh O’Brien, NYC.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve never been on a real writing retreat, so I can\u2019t compare it to a classic one, but I liked it. I finished the draft of Project Next that I\u2019ve been revising since May 1st<\/sup>, which feels like an important milestone.<\/p>\n

The one down side was growing stiff from sitting in the same chair for so long every day, but even then, I had a pretty view of the quiet harbor.<\/p>\n

As we left today, my husband and I stopped in New York City where I met up with Nancy Mercado, my editor. \u00a0She introduced me to the designer who will work on my cover. \u00a0Then Nan and I had a chance over lunch to talk about some of the revisions I’ve made and where the series is headed. \u00a0I could use another retreat just to mull over all we discussed.<\/p>\n

You have to love the city in the summer. \u00a0The temperature hit 99\u00b0F, and the sidewalks baked heat upward.\u00a0 I felt like I\u2019d surfaced out of the obsessive, cocoon world of my novel into another planet, with culture and climate shock.<\/p>\n

\"5th

5th Avenue, July 18, 2013, 2 pm, 99\u00baF.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past three weeks, I lived on Long Island at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where my husband was running a course. \u00a0It was a writing retreat of sorts for me, with none of the usual interruptions of life at home, and long, solitary hours with my computer. Food was available three times a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[246],"class_list":["post-2952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-writing","tag-project-next"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2952"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2980,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions\/2980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}