no retreat, no surrender

But I am actually going on a writing retreat, an informal one, at a friend's house in Lake Tahoe (or is that at Lake Tahoe?). I'll be there for a week, writing like crazy, hoping to finish or nearly finish my novel. This makes me feel great trepidation. There's something about the idea of going some place particularly (and only) to write that gives me performance anxiety. I feel more secure if writing is something that has to be tucked in, or even wedged forcibly into a day that has other purposes. A leftover from when I wrote on the dining room table after the kids went to bed.
Maybe this week at Lake Tahoe will allow me to claim my writing in a new way.
Some books I'm taking with me:
Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin
The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby
That damned copy of the Missouri Review given entirely over to Rick Bass that I still haven't finished reading yet.