To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a #momcation.
Let me explain. Months ago, my dear husband brought up an idea. During spring break, he and his father would take our two darling children to Mexico. His dad has a time-share at a resort with swimming pools and all-inclusive meal options. But what would Olivia do, you ask? It was a no-brainer. The first words to pop into my head: WRITING RETREAT! A me-treat, if you will. Immediately, I got to work putting together a little getaway of my own, and scheduled my time so I’d be free of any freelance projects. I knew if I stayed home, with all its distractions like laundry, email, and TV, I’d get very little done, even with the family gone. I needed a place that was semi-isolated, but not too remote. Somewhere with Wi-Fi and a room of my own. Simple. Clean. Nice but not too expensive. I did some research into Zen Buddhist centers and cheap hipster motels, but I already had a place in mind. I’d been wanting to try it for a while, and it turned out to be just the ticket. Costanoa is an "eco adventure resort" roughly 80 minutes south of San Francisco on CA-1 in Pescadero. It offers lots of different accommodation types. On one end of the spectrum there’s a KOA on the property hosting tent camping and RVs, plus some cabins. On the other end is a luxury lodge and spa. This part also has deluxe cabins with housekeeping, fireplaces, bathrobes, phones, and mini-fridges. For some reason, Costanoa emphasizes its accommodations have no TVs, although if you bring your laptop with a DVD drive, as I did (I didn’t trust the Wi-Fi would be stable enough for streaming), who cares? I need me my stories, people! Anyway, what met my modest needs were the resort’s tent bungalows. My friend introduced me to the term glamping a few years ago—glamorous camping or glam camp. Apparently the British coined this clever phrase, no surprise. The tent bungalows come in a variety of sizes, some for families/groups of up to six. Since I only had me, I reserved a two-person lodging. Mid-week, it was a pretty good deal, and with my AAA membership, the nightly rate was $79-ish. There’s electricity and yes, some spotty Wi-Fi. My laptop and tablet connections were pretty good, but for some reason I had issues pushing through texts on my cell phone. The queen bed, which takes up most of the space in the cozy quarters, is covered in an electric blanket and comforter for those super chilly, early spring evenings and nights. Next time: Part 2 of my Glamping Me-treat Momcation story!
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In San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area, you'll find pop-ups everywhere. Pop-up art galleries, pop-up restaurants, pop-up book clubs. You'll also find community exchanges, part of the sharing movement. One of my favorites is a couple of newspaper dispensers near the local Whole Foods that have been converted into book swaps or little free libraries. Leave a book, take a book. One box is for children's literature, the other for adults. I've found a gem now and then, and have dropped off some donations myself on occasion. A couple of days ago, my friend Jeremy sent me a photo of a box—not sure where it was, but he lives in the East Bay, so maybe there. Guess what was inside? Yup. Part of me is proud and another part is slightly...miffed. Like, seriously, You? You, whoever you are who had a copy of my book, didn't want to keep it? Needed to make room for something different, something better? Seeing my book in a giveaway/discard pile is not the same as discovering someone reading it on the bus (I have yet to experience that fizzy little moment of jelly). It's true, I've cleared out books myself, à la the life-changing magic of tidying up. A lot of books. Books that friends gave me, with the philosophy that they needed to be shared, that those books weren't living their lives, so to speak, gathering dust on my shelves. So, I know it's OK, and even excellent that someone chose to share my book rather than chuck it in a recycling bin. But it's also slightly, mortifyingly disappointing, in the way it is when a friend will say, "Oh, I gave my copy of your book to so-and-so." I always want to say, "Great! Thanks for getting it into the hands of more readers. But how about buy so-and-so a copy of my book instead?" But that would be ungrateful and bitchy. Because that's not the sharing movement 'tude. Every now and then, though, there is someone who is a follower of the support-Olivia-so-she-can-up-her-sales-figures-and-become-a-bestseller-and-make-a-real-living-as-an-author-and-put-food-on-the-table-through-her-creative-writing movement. I get that that is not a movement with legs. I've come to terms with that. Mostly. Not entirely. Clearly, or I wouldn't be writing this, would I? So, I've been using Wordpress to build my website. Then things started going off the rails with all the plug-ins updating. The darn thing didn't work anymore! I'm not a coder or an html-er. I can't afford to pay for tech support. I wish this weren't the case, but alas and alack. Now I'm giving Weebly, a drag and drop builder, a go. We shall see if this works out or not. I'm hoping not not.
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About Olivia
I'm the author of two novels, Year of the Smoke Girl and The Flower Bowl Spell. My stories have been published in anthologies and lit mags. I'm currently working on a chapter book series, a middle-grade novel, and I've posted an award-winning novel, Hearts & Minds, to Wattpad, which is free to read! Archives
December 2020
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