Cliff House Writer's Retreat

While SCBWI was having their National Conference in California a smaller conference was happening on the East Coast, The Cliff House Writing Retreat.

Angie, Rox, Gail, Laura

Four novel writer's, three YA and one MG, combined craft, critique and encouragement for each other's writing.

Laura completed a revision of her contemporary YA novel,
No Strings Attached.

Gail worked on her query and touching up a technical issue for her latest YA novel, The Freak Emporium.

Roxanne worked on her YA Steampunk selection for the upcoming Pugalicious Press anthology titled, My Dangerous Heart.

And Angie revised her MG "boy-centered" novel, Meatballs and Mooncakes.

We started with a working lunch on Thursday. Two hours of critiquing, then two hours of swimming in the glorious sun. A gourmet dinner and more critiquing in the evening accompanied by the cool mountain breezes of the Poconos.

And the writing birds were busy. Roxanne, the night owl, stayed up writing into the wee hours of the morning. Her head barely hit the pillow when Laura, the early bird, was up at 4:30 AM to write in the peace and quiet of a sleeping house.

After breakfast on the cliff, critiquing began again. A full day -- query letters, agent searches and revising took place on Friday. Dinner out again and more writing in the evening.

New critique groups were formed, novels became polished and a YA short story is closer to it's submission deadline.

It was so productive we are planning on doing it again in the fall in front of a roaring fire with home baked cookies and flavored coffees.