A Writer's Retreat

Hey everyone!

Today was the first really warm day of the new year, so I decided to grab some food, a light jacket, and my writing notebook and search for a suitable, secluded place where I could begin my new story. My English teacher suggested this past week that I should submit something to the school's literary newspaper, and I have a great idea for a short story. The only problem? I absolutely, positively cannot write when I'm around other people. Like Snoopy on top of his doghouse, I can only write when I'm completely by myself. So, I thought I'd take advantage of the warmth and the sunshine, and take my writing out into the fresh air.

I packed an apple, three cookies, some pencils, and my notebook into an L.L. Bean duffel bag that my mom had lying around the house.

Then I set off across the driveway.

The snow piles made by my dad's plow have yet to melt, somehow, but they're a lot smaller than they were. I scrambled up the small incline and stumbled across the uneven, frozen surface of the snow towards the patch of grass under the trees.

When I reached dry ground, I began searching around for a suitable place to sit.

Unfortunately, most of the ground was either too cold, too wet, or too pine-needle-y for my tastes. I looked thoughtfully up at the trees. There were plenty of branches that I could use as footholds, and maybe there would be one big enough for me to sit on. I decided to try.

I balanced on a thin branch, gripping the tree trunk to hold myself steady.

After clambering up a few feet or so, I noticed a large clump of something off to my left. Peering closer, I realized that it was a nest of some sort.

I climbed over to it and sat down. Even though it was made of pine needles, it was soft and springy, and firm enough that I didn't feel as if I was about to fall through. What could have made it? I was pretty sure that it wasn't a bird's nest, but what else made its home in a tree?

Oh, well. It was the perfect place to sit down and write. I took the apple, a pencil, and my notebook out of my bag and settled in to do so.

It wasn't until nearly two hours later that my fingers became so numb with cold that I couldn't hold the pencil, and I looked up to realize that the last light was fading from the sky. I sighed and climbed down from the tree. I guess it's still not quite warm enough to spend the evening sitting in a tree.

As I wandered across the lawn and onto the driveway, I glanced back at the nest one last time. It was completely hidden amongst the branches; from here, one might think that it was just another, rather lumpy, part of the tree. I grinned. I could imagine that becoming quite a writer's retreat, just as long as Zoe didn't find out about it.

Do you have a place you use for hiding yourself away for a few hours? Do you like to write?

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!