A friend of mine, and a contributor on this site, is a teacher.  He’s on summer vacation now and recently took a one man writing retreat.  He left town and stayed at a place with no phone and no TV.  I told him I was jealous since lately I’ve seen my writing get a little deprioritized–short sessions or no sessions at all some days.

But then I got thinking.  I have five days of vacation.  I have no money to go any great distance or do anything particularly amazing for vacation.  Normally that would be depressing and I would just keep working like a drone and bitching about how I didn’t have any money to do anything with the days.  Alternatively I might just hoard the days and dribble them out for a three day weekend here and there. 

Instead I’m taking a writer’s retreat of my own.  I’m just taking all five days and using it to finish the first draft of my novel.  I figure I’m about 98 percent done.  This work has been much more tortoise than hare but now I’m going for a sprint across that finish line.  I’ll lay in a good supply of coffee, tobacco, and beer and put the coup de grace on this bad boy.  It may not sound like much but I’m excited.