This Is Not The Sort of Dangerous Writing I Meant

Apparently, the writing life is hazardous to your health. According to an article I read a while back in The Washington Post, sitting for 11 hours a day or more for people aged 45 or older (that would be ME!)  led to an increased risk of death (from all causes) by about 40 percent over four years, compared to the risk of death in people who sat just four to eight hours a day, the study found.

I'm a champion sitter. I sit to write, blog, tweet, Facebook, write more, read, eat, watch tennis, watch the Olympics, and write still more. Speaking of the Olympics, I'm sure I'd make the U.S. Olympic team for synchronized sitting.

What to do? I guess I'll have to read on a treadmill, eat on my feet, and actually play tennis instead of practicing my armchair backhand. But all this alarum over sitting has gotten me into such a tizzy that I'm decamping on vacation for two weeks. I'll be headed to Holden Village, high in the Washington State Cascades. There won't be blogs and tweets there--and I may very well get in a bit of hiking.

But keep my seat warm for my Olympic debut, won't you? See you next month!

I'M BACK!!

Yesterday, several very nice readers (DanPloy, Anita, and Chris Phillips) left comments on my blogs to the effect of wondering whether I was back and whether I needed a vacation after a vacation. (Thanks for missing me, guys!)

Yup, that's precisely how I feel. Even though I was really truly away from it all in the mountains of the high Cascades, with food aplenty and no need to scratch my head every evening, trying to figure out what to cook.

The place, in Washington State, is called Holden Village. It is inaccessible by road. (You have to take a boat up Lake Chelan and then a 40 minute bus ride up a series of switch backs to the village itself.)

"Our" boat: Lady of the Lake

There is no wireless internet, no cell phone service, no TV reception. The village is ringed by mountain peaks, many of them still snow-capped in late July.

Dining Hall, with one of the mountains behind

It's the sort of place where kids, unplugged, play card games into the night. We didn't see our 14-year-old pretty much all day long. The 8-year-old organized a kid's production of Hansel and Gretel. The 4-year-old spent the morning hours in the children's program called Narnia. Which meant that I had three hours every morning to write.

I wrote long-hand by the banks of the raging river. There's something about being near flowing water: ideas flow also. I have several new ideas; all I need is the time to pursue them. And something else about being away from "civilization": I was writing because I love to write, not getting twisted up inside wondering if I'll ever be published.

Re-entry is always difficult. Living for a week with 300 other people in an isolated mountain village, people smile and talk and don't incessantly check their smart phones. Back in the "real world" people frown and ignore and stare at screens. Cars move too quickly. Children disappear into their iDevices.

I guess I'll get used to it again before too long. But if any of you want to send me someone to cook all my daily meals, I'll be much obliged.

(I'm also attending the Willamette Writers' Conference today, pitching to a couple of agents. Positive thoughts would be much appreciated!)

My Scintillating Summer Schedule

Summer vacation is upon us. 3 boys = noise = inability to hear myself think. The one thing I must preserve is my novel-writing time, so something has to give.

In an effort to preserve sanity, I will be posting only on Tuesdays and Fridays until mid-September on this blog, and on Mondays over at Middle Grade Mafioso.

It all starts this Friday with a further investigation of June's Craft Book of the Month: How to Write a Damn Good Novel II.

Is it full steam ahead for you and your blog this summer? Or will you be pulling up the drawbridge and taking a bit of a break?