I’ll be spending the entire first week of May holed up in a hotel room somewhere in America, writing.  Guess where I’m going, leave a comment with your entry and stand a chance to win a box full of crappy but hopefully fun souvenirs from this place.

Why am I doing this?  By necessity, my normal fiction writing process is to write a little bit first thing in the morning every single day.  Recently I’ve been “freaking out” because life keeps getting in the way of making progress on this triptych of short stories I’m working on.  We might be moving soon, which will be an additional distraction, and I had nightmare visions of not finishing the first drafts of these stories until sometime next fall.

My wife, who spent January of this year at a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, recently suggested, in an attempt to calm me down, that I do something similar.  I don’t know.  Although I see it’s value, I’m not sure I’d be into the whole social aspect of that kind of thing.  Plus, the day job would not allow for a full month away.  And most importantly, I don’t want to wait.

Then, about a week and a half ago, she suggested that I just go to a hotel somewhere for a week.

I like hotel rooms.

My schedule was mostly free the first week of May.

I’m desperate.

So, willing to go just about anywhere I could get a good deal, I booked a trip.

I’ve always told myself that I’m incapable of working for long stretches of time, but it is rare that I’ve actually tried.  These stories would benefit from a sense of urgency that a burst of creativity might provide.  They’d also benefit if my brain went a little crazy from being locked in a hotel room.  I’m actually hoping for that.  Yes, this experiment may be a total bust, but I’m going to give it a shot.  My goal is to have a good first draft of all three stories by the end of the week.

Please enter the contest…

Hints:

1. From New York City, it’s cheap to get to.  It’s also cheap to stay there.  I don’t own a car.  This place is not in New York City.  My transportation costs and hotel room combined are costing me just a bit over $500.
2. I was not willing or able to stay in a total fleabag (my wife has bed bug phobia and would try to quarantine me and douse me with highly toxic pesticides when I got home (yes, I know one can get bed bugs from anywhere…believe me, I know)).
3. It had to be a place where I could go outside to walk around, get some stimulation and clear my head from time to time.  So this excludes places like the Super 8 by Exit 37 off the Jersey Turnpike, as well as probably 95% of the rest of car-dominant, non-pedestrian-friendly America.

Contest Rules:

1. Leave a comment on this post with your guess.  Whoever comes the closest to guessing where I’m staying wins a collection of mostly useless souvenirs from the mystery destination (not sure what I’ll find, but gathering souvenirs will be my one non-writing activity).  Be as specific as you dare:  state, city/town, area of that city/town, hotel name, room number.
2. Only one entry per person.
3. In the event of a tie, the person who leaves the comment first wins everything.
4. Those few people who already know where I’m going are disqualified.
5. The contest is open to all citizens of thew world (we have contempt for political borders here).  If a reader from Australia wins, I will gladly pay shipping that costs many times more than the items in the box are worth.
6. Contest ends at the stroke of midnight (EDT) on Monday, May 11, the day I’m back.
7. Void where prohibited by law (or something).

Good luck.

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