on writing retreats

I wrote my first sex scene in the attic of a cabin in upstate, between scampering over rocks by the levee, and driving through fireflies on the highway back to Brooklyn.

I had written the first 30k words of Siren of the Saint in a flurry of activity the previous winter and had stalled, worrying that it was a fluke. In the process of overthinking it, I’d managed to write nothing in between, and I knew that what I needed to walk away from the weekend with something steamy if I ever wanted to finish the book.

When we unpacked in the house, I hung up my clothes so they wouldn’t wrinkle. I pulled out my film camera and documented everything aesthetic for posterity. I made espresso for iced coffees, filmed it, making tiktok content for both of us. Then when my writing-buddy retreated to work on her manuscript, I had to confront it.

I didn’t really. I climbed a ladder suspended from a rope and wedged myself into the ceiling and wrote about every feeling leading up to the scene. I wrote about the aftermath and the build up and then I gritted my teeth and wrote every vulgar word I could think of. It was terrifying. It was liberating. Once they were on my screen, it was just a matter of connecting them and then coming up with euphemisms.

I wrote 11k that day.

It was horrible, really quite awkward and what you’d expect from someone with my specific history but it was done. I came down from the attic, changed out of my sweltering clothes, and queued up National Treasure, because I deserved it. And honestly, I haven’t flinched at a dirty word (nor shied from a paragraph of ‘em) since.