Day Three of Inhouse Retreat - I'm going to look at the landscape

Today, now, right now, it is snowing. In the parlance of the South Shore it will be a heavy snow as it is 'little snow' and the saying goes 'little snow big snow' and of course vice versa 'big snow little snow'. What this generally means is if the snow flakes are tiny there will be a large accumulation and if they are big fat Hollywood snow flakes - not so much. I'll let you know what happens. The weather is being most kind to my retreat as it invokes the desire to stay put.

Day three - oh my. I am trying to give you a flavour of this process without being too tedious. In that vein I will tell you what I'm doing when I'm not doing what is on my little list. First of all I am wearing ugly but comfortable clothes - the same ones every day - leggings with what my friend Marion's German mother would call 'schlobbin hosen' which I take to mean sloppy pull up pants. On top I'm wearing a t-shirt and a sweater that belonged to my dad. I'm warm and comfortable. When I take a break I eat something good - yoghurt with walnuts and blueberries and other fruit in the morning - eggs for lunch or soup and something light for dinner. I am not taking long for breaks but even if I do I read one of my many books that keep me in the revising head-space - Koch's Writer's Workshop, or Lamott's Bird by Bird or etc... These are to keep me from freaking out - not so much for the technical info though it is good to read over Revision & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell and spend some time on his very particular check-lists!
The biggest obstacle is that my back isn't very good. I try to remember to stretch and so forth every hour but still it just doesn't like sitting very much. Ron is being a peach - working away at his own thing and letting me prattle on about what I'm doing. In the evenings we watch a movie or Holmes and Watson and early to bed where I dream and dream and dream.

Now - here is today's schedule:
Day Three

meditate
1 page synopsis - one hour
breakfast
manuscript work - two hours
lunch
meditate
finish two synopsis - two hours
walk
work on manuscript - two hour

We'll see where I get to...

I'll check in later on.

12:30 Check-in - hmmm...no big snow - though it appears to be snowing a bit right now and the sky is clear - this must be fox wedding season!
I worked on my one page synopsis - ARRRRRRGH! Really, it makes me nuts but I won't give up.
I am just about to start chapter 15. I am making hugish changes which I'm more than happy about - but it makes the work oh so slow. My hope at this point is to get half the manuscript work done by the end of day five - that would be ten more chapters. Can I do it? I think so. Then I can safely send off packets (should I also get my query letters and synopses done) at the end of day five. I will then have two weeks to do the next 25 chapters. I'll just have to chip away at them, one or two a day...more on the weekend.
OK - back to work with me now....

6:35 Check in - still a snowy day. Well, I ploughed through more of the manuscript than I thought I'd get to. I'm on chapter 21 and that includes combining some and taking one out in its entirety. At this rate I think I'll get about 30 or more chapters done, out of 49. Hard to say what percentage I'm at - almost half-way but I'm chopping as I go so might be further! Tomorrow I marked for an all manuscript day but will play it by ear. Ron's made corned beef and cabbage for dinner. We are drowning in brassicas. Drowning.
Okey dokey - I'll check in tomorrow for day four.