I arrived at the Mission Point Resort around six-thirty of eerily calm Sunday night- exactly twenty-four hours before the writing retreat officially started. The salmon and beet salad gave me the first welcoming discovery- the bar window’s view of Mackinac Island’s southbound shoreline towards Round Island across the strait. Even before dinner with myself, the white stoney beach blew in a classic autumn breeze. I came early enough to take in the sightings of horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, cobwebs on lamp posts, and dozens of leashed dogs with their tourist owners. 

I didn’t know if I was dazed by the other writers listing their credentials with introductions before me or how I’ll be spending five days in an isolated town that bans cars. We woke up every morning to the consistent lessons of “finding your voice-” led by our coach, Lynne Golodner, and guest speaker/kayak guide/local poet, Glen Young.

While my main goal was to stay more in depth with my protagonist of my working novel, I wrote out an entire character sketch with specifics I hadn’t articulated before. But when Lynne played a meditation video, it drew a clearer picture as I imaigned my main character walking past me with three dogs on leashes. 

Whether writing at certain places or about certain places, I flexed more of my poetic muscles when it came to our group adventures around the island; the activities included bicycling, hiking, and kayaking. During each stop of walking and talking to one another, the prompts kept in the back of our minds were either what we found the most astonishing about Mackinac Island, did the place made us feel any different, and what did we want to share when we got home. When it came to ekphrastic writing at the Richard & Jane Manoogian Mackinac Art Museum, we took each moment we had in front of artwork made from assorted materials- watercolors, glassware, oil on paper, rocks, and acrylics. Eventually while hiking between the Arch Rock to the Skull Cave, a few of my poems became lyrical verses for songs someday. 

 Most of us, writers coming from across the country, had questions about taking risks and how to keep up a routine after returning home, especially from a young mother writing poetry in Texas.  Their backgrounds- including my own- would acquire adjustments, such as when would our journals become memoirs. The futures of an Indiana sports reporter and a Long Island public school teacher would lie within their own energies combined with memories worth sharing to their audience. 

As I returned home, I found a way to reserve more time to read and write in the morning before having breakfast. The retreat motivated me to wake up early enough each time to revise some of my poetry into a manuscript on time for deadline. Even during the given times of free-writing in the workshops when I felt stuck on words, I played music on my headphones as if my book had a soundtrack. I discovered my protagonist loves Cyndi Lauper. When I continue on my working novel, I’d take all of the “what-if” scenarios I made up in one of our exercises as brand new chapters to compose.