5 Days of Bliss - Cape May, NJ

It’s a writer’s dream to be able to spend concentrated time with your characters and plots. No thoughts of work, household chores, the kids or what to make for dinner. Given everything else going on in most of our lives, we’re lucky to get a few hours of such time never mind a few days.  

Recently I was fortunate to have that opportunity when I took myself off to Cape May, NJ, for five days with only one aim: to write.  Leaving my husband and daughter behind (having done the laundry and filled the refrigerator beforehand) I installed myself in the Hotel Macomber, my favorite beach-side hotel, for a Monday thru Friday escape.(I figured that as they would both be at work most of the day, there would be less time for them to notice my absence).

Being off-season, not only was the hotel quiet but the whole resort. Judging from the parking lots, few hotels had more than a handful of guests, several of the shops and restaurants were closed and most of the usual beach attractions were still shuttered—in all a perfect location without distractions.

How wonderful it was to have endless hours just to write. Depending on the time of day and the weather, I’d either sit in my room, on the wonderful deserted veranda in the sun, or on a bench on the boardwalk.

I had been concerned that I might find the ideas just didn’t come, that my characters might decide they were on vacation, but once I got started the words just seemed to flow. Every so often I would take a break and go for a stroll along the shore or, for a change, around the local streets with their pristinely-painted Victorian-style residences.  Wherever I went, my characters followed along, giving me ideas for the next page, the next chapter. It was pure bliss.

Many thanks to Crystal at the Hotel Macomber for stocking all three of my novels in her gift shop Design by Mermaids.