The Best Gift, an IWSG post

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Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the December 3 posting of the IWSG are Tara Tyler, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, Liza, and Natalie Aguirre!

December 3 question - As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received?

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Winter Holidays, 2010. We had opened all the packages and were sitting there basking in the glow when my husband announced that there was one more gift. He left the room and came back with a little scroll, then handed it to me. 

When I unrolled it, I found that Sweetman had bought me a writing retreat! I'd be going to Pelican House for a week of quiet and writing. 

 It was quite a gift--not only in the dollar value of the retreat itself, but because it was also a promise to take on the extra labor to grant me the time. He'd be a single dad to our kids (they were nine and two at the time), take care of our house and dog, and leave me free to ignore my part of those responsibilities for a whole week and just focus on my writing!

 It was an amazing show of support.  

That week ended up being really important to my writing life. Not only did I make great progress on the book, but I made friends with a group of supportive women who boosted my confidence and helped me see the value in my work. It did a lot to fight my imposter syndrome and make me feel like this was something I could actually do. 

It's easier to find writing time now. Our kids are older. I changed jobs to something less stressful. I've got better at focusing under less-than-ideal conditions. But the writing space inside my head still looks a lot like the room at the top of the cupola at Pelican House.