Experience with retreats/getaway places

[FillerFight]

Does anyone have any experience with getting away to finish a novel? I would like to go to a cheap place for a few months, but I don't know if it would work. I'm often inspired by things I'm thinking about because I'm close to my life, i.e. at home. On the other hand, I would like to get away to be more focused (and I would save money). Do you get up to your retreat and find out it's too boring or you can't get anything done and now you're stuck there?

Interesting article about that in the New Yorker with the project to isolate three novelists in little structures for a few months. They weren't getting anything done apparently.

[arrowqueen]

Closest I get to a writers' retreat is locking myself in the loo - and even then they keep finding me.

Sorry.

[maestrowork]

I don't go away for months (can afford it and also can't leave real life behind for too long). I do go to a mountain cabin once in a while. No cell phones. No internet.

When I'm in Los Angeles, I tend to write a lot. I don't know why. I guess it's so sunny out there, and I could just sit at Coffee Bean or Starbucks and just write all day... somehow it's harder to do here because of the distractions.

[Tish Davidson]

I just post a sign on my office door that says "No, you really DO NOT need me right now," and my family gets the message. Amazing how many of their own problems they discover they can solve. :)