This week is a bit of an exciting one. On Wednesday I leave for the annual Altered Fluid & Friends writing retreat for what will be nearly 5 days of writing. This year it is even more exciting than usual for a number of reasons. One of those being that it will occupy the time between me finishing one job and starting another.

It also gives me the much-needed time to finish revisions on my middle grade novel. Come the end of February, I intend to hand it over to my agent and, hopefully, forget about it for at least a little while. And for the moments when my brain will inevitably need a break from that, I have a few short stories that I need to complete as well.

The other exciting thing is that N will be coming up for part of the retreat, which minimizes one of the harder parts of such retreats, namely being away from the people you care about.

Perhaps in anticipation of this, I had a dream last night that played out like a story. In it, I was picked up from the airport by two men driving a car. The fact that they anticipated where I was going before I was able to tell them, clued me in to the fact that they were up to no good. It was soon clear they were abducting me for nefarious reasons and one of them pulled a gun on me.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the exact reason for them wanting me but I remember pleading with the man, saying that I’d be out of the way since I would be on my writing retreat and it was really important to me and if they just let me go I wouldn’t muck up whatever they were planning. It was as soon as I mentioned the writing retreat and the gunman realized how much it meant to me, that he moved the gun barrel toward my right hand. That’s when I really started freaking out.

Thankfully, the dream shifted gears shortly after that.  So yes, the retreat – I’m really looking forward to it.

Almost forgot to mention that my awesome writing group, Altered Fluid, will be on the Hour of the Wolf radio program (hosted by Jim Freund) tomorrow, January 16, from 5-7 AM (yes, in the morning). The show is on New York’s WBAI, 99.5 FM. Paul Berger will be reading a new story live on the air and then the rest of the group will critique it live on the air, as we’ve done in the past.

Jim’s show is always fun and is one of the few things worth waking up for prior to 4 AM.

If you’re not an insomniac, a diehard fan or a vampire, the show will be available for streaming after broadcast.

To date my writing group, Altered Fluid, has appeared on Jim Freund’s most excellent radio show, Hour of the Wolf, on WBAI, five times. Three times since I’ve been with the group. But today was the first time I’d read one of my stories on the air and had it critiqued. The show started at 5 AM, which I call an obscene hour, but I felt remarkably rested and invigorated thanks to my own coffee and that brought in by fellow Fluidian Mercurio Rivera.

The show went even better than I’d hoped and while my reading wasn’t everything I wanted it to be, I didn’t think it sucked. The critique was lively and insightful and from the discussion I’ve already got some ideas on how to proceed. Additionally, we were able to take a few phone calls and it was great to be able to interact with the listeners*.

I had a great time and I feel good about the experience. If you’d like to check out the broadcast without having to get up at that ungodly hour, you can check it out here.

Kris Dikeman, a member of my writing group, Altered Fluid, wrote a brilliant story called “Nine Sundays in a Row” which Strange Horizons had the good sense to publish.

The story was also recently recognized in the top ten list for the storySouth Million Writers Award. You can vote for it for best story of the year. I urge you to check out the story and then go and vote.