This past week, some of my Patrons & Peers friends and I gathered for our annual retreat…and as always, it was a ton of fun! Also, as always, this one had its own flavor, with new highlights and new friends made.

Most of us arrived in Pensacola Beach on Thursday (with two arriving on Friday). This year there were 11 of us total, including two husbands who came (one of which was mine, LOL). We style this as a creative retreat, and this year we had quite a few novelists (me of course, Danielle Grandinetti, Renee Leonard Kennedy, Lenora Worth, and Marilyn Turk), one quilter (Deanna), an embroiderer (Susan), a chef there working on her thesis (Halee), and a songwriter (Kathleen).

(From left to right: Renee, Halee, Marily, Lenora, Deanna, Danielle, me, David, Kathleen, Mike, Susan)

One of my biggest joys was getting to meet people this year that I haven’t met in person before. Halee has been a member of P&P from the get-go and has been trying to make it to the retreat every single year, but life kept interfering. This year, though, everything finally came together! Renee joined the group almost exactly a year ago but hadn’t had a chance to really plug in yet, so this was an amazing chance to get to know each other (and get her into all the text, video, and email groups so everyone else can get to know her too!). Kathleen joined last November and is one of our youngest members (she’s my daughter’s age!); she dove right into all our groups when we joined, so we already knew her well, and it was awesome to get to hug her. Susan is one of our “Houston girls,” and so she’s had a chance to meet in person with the Houston contingent, but it was the first time I got to hug on her–and her husband acted as our chef quite a few nights, so we joked that he is welcome any time. 😉 (I mean, the sentiment is true, but not JUST because he’s an amazing cook.)

I was a bit floored when Danielle (who has been a member forever and has come to 3 of the 4 retreats) recruited Lenora Worth to the group (I have Lenora’s books on my shelf going way back); in large part because she wanted to come on this retreat. It was in her region, and she wanted the chance to hang out, be creative, and network a bit. She’s such a delight!! And I was equally excited when Lenora then brought Marilyn Turk in to round out our numbers. It was a true joy to get to know these two ladies who are newer to the group but fit right in. =)

And then there was Deanna, who has been to EVERY retreat, so she gets the badge of distinction, LOL. She’s the quilter, a fabulous organizer and cook, and famous among us for her M&M cookies, which are a staple at our retreats. She made two batches for us while there, which were a big hit.

Halee and Danielle enjoying fresh cookies as ice cream sandwiches…

We took walks on the beach together. We talked (a lot) about everything–writing, family, faith, dreams. We enjoyed amazing food. We laughed (also a lot). And there were many, many hugs given.

My creative goal on this retreat was twofold–to finish Volatile (an Awakened world novella that falls between books 3 and 4 and will come out next spring) and get as much written on book 4, Alight, as I could squeeze in. I ended up finishing the novella on Friday (I wrote 9,000 words in it to achieve that, 3K on Thursday at airports and on the plane, and then 6K to finish it off on Friday), which was SUCH a relief. And then I ended up getting Alight up to 18K by the time I got home yesterday. So that was a total of around 29,000 words written. 

This last weekend also happened to be when our group had our Zoom book club chat scheduled for A Song Unheard, so we connected my laptop to the big TV in the living room and had the party there, with those who could join us from home. We had a great conversation about Willa and Lukas and music…which led to talk about how both Halee and Kathleen are vocalists. We, er, encouraged (volunteered, LOL) them to give us a concert on Sunday, and oh my goodness. I think that was my favorite part of the retreat!

Sunday was just such a day of joyful worship. A bunch of us all walked to church together in the morning (the Catholic church was literally right behind our house and one lot over, so a 2-minute walk), and then we had that time of singing in the evening. These ladies are TALENTED!

At one point in the musical evening, Kathleen shared a song with us that she’d written a week before. And guys, I got CHILLS…because the words were an exact echo of what I’d just written in Volatile. She unintentionally wrote Perla’s theme song! As in, quite seriously, the words of her song were in many cases the EXACT WORDS that Perla thought. Naturally, I pounced on Kathleen and begged her let me share her song when Volatile comes out. We’re going to put the text in the front of the book as a poem, and sometime between now and when it releases we’ll sort out how best to share the music too. I’m sure we’ll link to her performing it somewhere, and will probably create a trailer for the novella too with that song as the music. Giddy!!

We ended the evening with the doxology, and let me just say that the full group singing together in full harmony was just…perfect. Beautiful, and it resonated deep within.

Deanna made a big ol’ bunch of pocket prayer quilts and gave us each three of them (two smaller ones and one big one) to keep and share. Susan was working on a beautiful piece of embroidery featuring a stack of books and flowers (so appropriate!). Lenora and Marilyn both had to leave for a book signing on Saturday but came back on Sunday.

Sunday evening we also went to the beach between dinner and dessert to catch the simultaneous moonrise and sunset. We asked a couple ladies we met on the beach to take our picture and ended up chatting with them for a good while, which was fun. Then on Monday the tables were turned on us as we were taking a walk, and we got to take some photos for a family visiting from Ireland, which was also fun!

We didn’t get to see the Blue Angels practicing, but they did a fly-by and buzzed the beach on their way back from an event on Monday, and Danielle and I were working on the porch at the time and got a front row seat to that, so that was cool! (I didn’t have my phone with me so didn’t get any photos…and in the interest of giving credit where it’s due, I didn’t take most of these either, LOL. They’re borrowed from the group.)

On Monday I also did a live demonstration of a cover design, LOL. I’m Danielle’s designer, and she was working on a background image for a Christmas short story while there, so we just went inside and created it while we were together. It was great fun!

All in all, it was an amazing trip. Old friends hugged, new friendships solidified, so many precious moments shared, and memories made. And Sunday night we also put plans for next year’s retreat on the books. We’ll be going to the mountains of Tennessee the second week of October…so plenty of time to get in on the fun! 😉