locked out of heaven

I have retreated to an undisclosed location (aka Carmel), and I'm on a mission to fully finish Nick and Ellie's book by the weekend. Crazy, yes. Impossible, no. Or at least I don't think it's impossible; the whole reason I left the city and checked into a hotel was because I tend to reach a better level of creative focus and flow when I go somewhere else and ignore everything except the book. This is particularly important at the end of the book, when I'm trying to weave together all the little bits and threads that were dropped at various points - it's not something that I find easy to do in an hour a day.

Anyway, today was mostly about getting here - I woke up, showered, and started packing. I took a break to grab breakfast, then finished packing and promptly left for Carmel. I made it down here around 4:15 and checked into my hotel, which is *fantastic* - I'm already dreaming of my next retreat here. My room has a fireplace, some v. comfy leather chairs, a little table/desk, and a kitchen with enough supplies that I can make my own tea and food should I desire (which I probably won't, since I'm lazy). I talked to the parents, unloaded my car, and then walked a few blocks to find dinner. I ended up at PortaBella, which was expensive (but then, Carmel is expensive) but hugely delicious; I had paella, which I love, and since I had half of it left over, I have the chance to experience it again tomorrow. I also had a v. generous glass of wine and some creme brulee, which made me v. happy on the walk back to my hotel. Carmel was almost creepily quiet when I walked back, particularly since it was only 7:30pm; I suppose this is not the busiest tourist night of the week in any circumstances, let alone two weeks after Christmas break.

Once I got here, I took care of some tings, then worked until now - I had to transcribe notes/typo fixes from the editing software on my ipad into the master file on my desktop, and that took a couple of hours. But I'm done with that task, which means I can start working on the manuscript on my laptop tomorrow, which should do wonders for my productivity. And so now I suppose I should go to bed so that I can get up early and start writing - goodnight!