For some reason, I seem to do my best thinking on the drives that accompany a trip. I left home early Friday, at 5:30 a.m., and headed east for Ocracoke for my solo writing "retreat." Before I was halfway there, I'd figured out what I needed to do to make my narrator of the baseball novel really click (he's an old guy whose health is deteriorating, and he's apprehensive about the afterlife ever since he lost touch with his faith).

I also wondered if I should make the novel 3rd person (as it was originally), so I could jump into other characters' heads more. And I came up with a bunch of ideas for adding more back-history of some of the more colorful players on the team (that stuff will be fun to add into the novel!).

I even brainstormed ideas for a new novel set during the Internet boom of the late nineties (those wild and crazy startups!). That was all before I even got on the ferry from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke.

Maybe I should've saved money for the hotel and food and just turned around at that point (although the prospect of driving for another 4.5 hours wasn't all that appealing).

Once I got to Ocracoke, though, I was greeted by this:


So it was all worth it to have some time to enjoy the waves and the quiet, windy beach.

Bad news was that all my favorite spots were closed! The Ocracoke Coffee Shop (where I planned to spend a lot of time working on the novel printout), the Jolly Roger restaurant (meals), and just about every other place wasn't going to open until April. Fortunately, the place I stayed had a nice little area with a picnic table where I could spread out all my stuff and work all afternoon Friday and Saturday.

At least the bookstore was open, and the owner bought 5 copies of Heart's Revenge and even two copies of Gunning for the Buddha, which pretty much paid for my dinky hotel room. I also found a lovely mug for Lizzie in the store, Books to Be Red:


So all in all, the trip was worth it, though if I ever do it again, I won't go for two nights. I was ready to go home on Saturday. I missed Elizabeth and Drew too much, and I was tired of eating at the same place. I got a lot of great ideas for writing and best of all, just recharged my batteries.

Now, to get cracking on the novel rewrites. One idea I had on the drive back home to was re-type the whole novel into the computer, word by word. I figured this would give me a chance to do a lot of revising and adding scenes and making each sentence count. A good theory. I tried doing that this morning and I'm already balking at the idea, after three paragraphs. I hate writing stuff I've already written! I may have to work on this...

And finally, one last photo. This one is the Piranha Swing from in front of the bookstore:


I know Drew would've loved to ride on that swing! Later...