The short answer is, no.

The long answer is–I would never say I wasn’t inspired by the authors I read while I was growing up. I devoured all the Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Roald Dahl books I could find, and re-read my favorites (THE CHANGELING and THE WITCHES, respectively) over and over, for example. Those books definitely influenced the paths I took with my writing.

But, I think I was bound to become a writer before I even knew how to read. I loved stories from the first time my parents started reading picture books to me, and right away I was trying to make up my own (dictating to my mom so she could transcribe them, since I didn’t yet know how to print, either). There was never a moment when I read a particular book and thought, wow, I want to do this too. I was already doing it. I’ve never known how to not do it.

Fellow writers–did you have a moment of inspiration when you decided to pursue writing? Or was it something that just sort of happened?

Here’s the deal:

To enter, simply leave a thoughtful comment on this post or another participating author’s Bake Sale blog post, or tweet about the contest with the hashtag #YABakeSale10. Voila! You’re entered.

When you enter, you become eligible to win any one of the Personal Prize Packs (i.e. a comment on my blog may net you the Cyn Balog prize pack. You’re entering the whole contest, not just that particular author’s part of it.) You also become eligible to win the humongonormous Grand Prize Basket.

What’s in the Grand Prize Basket?

Each author has hand-written two copies of a favorite sweet-treat recipe. One copy has gone into a beautiful recipe book that is part of the Grand Prize Basket. In addition to the (hand-written! Did I mention that?) recipe collection, the Grand Prize winner will receive:

A signed copy of Cyn Balog’s SLEEPLESS
Bookmarks for KAT, INCORRIGIBLE by Stephanie Burgis
A signed copy of GIVE UP THE GHOST by Megan Crewe
Signed bookmarks for THE CRESCENT and HALF MOON, pencils, and a crescent moon and crystal-studded star necklace from Jordan Deen
A signed copy of 13 TO LIFE, a chap book of the prologue and first chapter of SECRETS AND SHADOWS from Shannon Delaney
A copy of THE BODY FINDER, a THE BODY FINDER tote bag, sticker and bookmarks from Kimberley Derting
An EVERLASTING-themed notebook, bookmark and pin from Angela Frazier
A signed copy of CLAIRE DE LUNE, signed stickers and a silver, moon-themed bookmark from Christine Johnson
A signed copy of SHADOWED SUMMER, matching chocolate candies, Twilight-themed heart candies, bookmarks and THE VESPERTINE dance card from Saundra Mitchell
A signed copy of THE PACE, by Shelena Shorts, along with bookmarks and THE PACE pencils
A signed hard-cover of SHADE and a Keeley Brothers pin from Jeri-Smith Ready
A signed copy of PERSONAL DEMONS, a PERSONAL DEMONS tank top, temporary tattoos, and bookmarks from Lisa Desrochers
. . . AND MORE!!! All for ONE LUCKY WINNER!

But that’s not all!

Each author has one other handwritten recipe that will be part of each author’s own Personal Prize Pack.

The prize packs include:

Cyn Balog – Signed copy of SLEEPLESS and a handwritten recipe for Coconut Bread.
Stephanie Burgis – UK paperback copy of A MOST IMPROPER MAGICK and a hand written recipe for Apple Muffins
Kay Cassidy – Hand-written recipe and giveaways
Megan Crewe – Hand-written recipe and signed copy of GIVE UP THE GHOST
Shannon Delaney – Hand-written recipe and signed copy of 13 TO LIFE
Jordan Deen – Basket with Pampered Chef baking gear and a recipe for Orange Pineapple Cake
Kimberley Derting – Signed copy of The Body Finder, stickers, a totebag, bookmarks and a recipe for Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Lisa Desrochers – A copy of PERSONAL DEMONS and a recipe for Sunday Coffee Cupcakes
Angie Frazier – A signed hard-cover copy of EVERLASTING, bookmark, and a recipe for Butter Rum Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream Frosting
Judith Graves – Copy of UNDER MY SKIN, a character card, and a recipe for Dead Lady Fingers
Christine Johnson – A signed hard-cover copy of CLAIRE DE LUNE, stickers, a silver moon-themed bookmark and a recipe for Chocolate-Chip Butterscotch Blondies
Saundra Mitchell – Recipe and giveaways
Jennifer Murgia – ANGEL STAR swag, Octogram earrings, and a hand-written recipe
Shelena Shorts – Signed copy of THE BROKEN LAKE and bookmarks and a hand-written recipe
Jeri Smith-Ready – SHADE UK paperback edition and a recipe for Scottish Oat Scones

And if that doesn’t get you drooling, I don’t know what would.

Good luck!

Fine print: The contest entries must be posted by midnight eastern time on September 20th. This contest is open to the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

All you’ve got to do for a chance to win is head over there and comment.

Good luck!

I know there are a lot of writers who’d like to attend a retreat, or attend more retreats, but find it hard to make it to or afford the bigger ones out there. That’s the position my critique group was in four years ago. We were sitting around talking about how nice those retreats sounded, and started speculating about whether we could set something up for ourselves, and I said, “Let me see what I can do.” A month later we had our very first private retreat!

So I figured some of you might be interested in knowing how I went about doing that. (I’ve handled most of the planning and organization for all four of our retreats.)

Note: All of this works best for a group of people who live within a couple hour’s drive of each other; if you’re trying to bring together people from further away, you’ll obviously need to make some adjustments in how you handle things like buying food.

And it’s usually best to start this process well ahead of time, especially if you’re going at a popular vacation time of year.

1. Determine how many people want to participate (and can at the time you all decide on). Discuss as a group any factors that will affect the details of the retreat, including:

-How long does everyone want to stay at the retreat for? (The first year we only did three nights, because we weren’t sure how it would go. Each of the last three years we’ve done five nights, and we’ve talked about maybe trying a whole week next year.) Note that as long as transportation is available for people, they may decide to come late or leave earlier than others if they can’t stay quite as long as the majority want to. (e.g., Last year all eight of our members were there for at least a couple nights, but only six of us stayed for the entire five.)

-What are everyone’s preferences for the location and features of accommodation? Total isolation or a place near/in a town or city where you can partake of civilization if you want to? How far are people willing to travel to get there? How much can everyone afford to chip in for the rent? Will everyone need a bed or are some okay with sleeping on a sofa or cot? How many bathrooms are an absolute necessity? If you’re going to a cottage, do you care about having a BBQ? A fire pit for roasting marshmallows? A lake to swim in?

-Is there anything people absolutely don’t want? (e.g., in the past we have avoided cottages with WiFi so no one will be tempted to procrastinate by surfing the ‘net. )

The number of people coming will also dictate how many beds you’ll need and how many parking spots.

2. Find potential places to stay that meet the criteria decided upon in the discussions above and are available for the dates you want. Since we like to stay in cottages, in Ontario, the two sites I always turn to are Cottages in Canada and CottageLink. There are plenty of similar sites for various types of accommodation in the US and elsewhere, too, I just can’t recommend any in particular. Usually it takes a little searching around to find ones that work best for you. Often I need to e-mail the owners to check details (for example, a lot of listings tell you how many bedrooms but not how many actual beds).

3. Share the best options with the rest of the group and narrow them down to the top two or three choices, then start booking. It’s best to know what your second favorite is in case you try the one you want the most and it turns out they just booked your dates. At this point you’ll want to start collecting everyone’s share of the rent, as most places ask for at least a small portion to hold the booking.

4. Come up with a plan for the retreat as a group. (This can also be done during the earlier discussion stage.) The plan can be as rigid as specific hours for meals and writing time or as flexible as leaving pretty much everything up in the air–though if you’re going somewhere not too close to any larger towns or cities you probably at least want to figure out the meal basics ahead of time. It really depends on what the participants want out of the group, and knowing what everyone’s goals are. My critique group mostly wants to get as much writing done as possible, so there’s an understanding that we’ll all go off on our own quietly most of the day and reconvene for meals and in the evening to relax and chat.

We’ve been lucky enough to have a member who enjoys cooking and has handled all the food purchasing (other than shared drinks and snacks) and cooking for the first three retreats. He wasn’t able to make it this year, though, and the system we used seemed to work quite well. We each brought food for all our individual breakfasts and lunches, other than a few common items we divvied up the purchase of, like milk and margarine, and to make one dinner for everyone. Each day everyone took care of their own breakfast and lunch preparation and clean-up, and then we took turns cooking dinner (and doing that clean up) for the group.

It’s good to get that worked out ahead of time so that everyone knows what their responsibilities will be and there’s no conflict over kitchen messes or the like.

You’ll also need to determine ahead of time how everyone will be getting to the retreat, based on who’s coming from where, who has a car, etc.

5. Go, and have fun! The easiest step, naturally. It’s often a good idea to exchange cell phone numbers ahead of time, unless you’re all going together, in case someone has trouble finding the place.

Those of you who’ve done retreats of your own, any other tips to contribute?

-universities and community colleges in New York City
-different types of alcoholic drinks
-skiing locations near Boston
-how to release the safety on a pistol
-when the third Lord of the Rings movie came out
-the procedures that usually follow an arrest

Yet another reason I am so grateful to have the internet at my fingertips!

The five of us who were able to make it convened at a cottage just east of Parry Sound, which turned out to be even more ideal than it sounded online. All the trees made it totally private, there was a big living room and kitchen for us to hang out it, lots of big windows for excellent views, and three of the four bedrooms had a little balcony!

(The view from my balcony)

I very quickly set up a writing spot down by the lake, where the was a bunkie with a deck, and a handy electrical outlet on the outside wall! It also came with handy log seats to act as water bottle/notebook holder and foot rest:

One of the special features of this spot was that, because the cottage was on quite a high hill, I had to go down a whole lot of steps to get to it, which meant if I had any thoughts about heading back to the cottage for any sort of non-writing activity, I had this view to discourage me:

(About half the the stairs you’d have to climb up to get to the cottage)

Not that I ended up needing a great deal of encouragement to keep writing. This is the first time I was finishing a book at the retreat instead of starting one, and having all that plot and character development already in place created a lot of momentum. My goal was to finish the book by the end of the retreat, and I have returned victorious! I typed “The End” at 9:20pm on the last night we were there. I got down about 29,000 words in four days, bringing the total for the book to just over 73K.

I think it can be said that a most fun and productive time was had by all.

(All of us on the dock–sorry, this was the best lighting we could get!)

The glass shelves may not look so pretty, but they’re perfect for placing around windows because they don’t block the light.

In the interview, I also talk about where I read and why, and a few for my all time favorite books.

And that’s what I’ll leave you with today, because it’s retreat time!

There was a lot of driving in the last couple days, but on pretty quiet roads, so I didn’t mind. The best part was having Chris put on my THE WAY WE FALL playlist (aptly titled “plague book” ) during the long stretches. Hearing those some of those songs while driving through the landscapes my characters would have grown up in gave me the shivers, literally.

Our first stop was up on Digby Neck, where we went out on a whale-watching cruise. We got to see several humpback whales (including one that breached–leapt out of the water!) as well as dolphins, porpoises, and a brief glimpse of a seal. Hard to take pics of them, but here’s my best attempt with the whales:

Then we headed to the beautiful little town of Annapolis Royal, where I got to take a spooky and historical graveyard tour and we stayed in the oldest inn there, by far our favorite of the places we stayed, Hillsdale House:

Totally recommend it if you’re ever in the area.

Our last full day, we checked out some more cliffs, in the Blomidon Provincial Park. It’s on the Bay of Fundy, so the tides are very extreme–the water depth changing by a few dozen feet between low and high tide. We were at the beach close to low tide, and you can get some idea of how much of the sea floor was left bare:

And then it was time to come home. But I’m sure we’ll return some day!

And then I will be taking off again!

Good night!

A little further down the coast, we took a break at Rissers Beach:

The sun only came out for a little while, but long enough for me to get into the water for a bit. Can’t come to the ocean without going for a swim!

It was a good thing I did then, because today has been too overcast and occasionally rainy for either of us to feel like taking a dip. But we still went over to Cape Sable Island to see an actual Nova Scotia island community. And while we were there, I found a house that fit what I pictured for Kaelyn’s! (Though hers would be on a town street, with neighbors closer by.)

Tomorrow we’re setting off to catch a whale watching cruise. Wish us luck seeing a humpback whale or two!