Writing retreats: how to get the balance right

A month ago I returned from the third writing retreat I’ve spent in the company of the best writing friends you could imagine. In 2021 we went to an old Arts and Crafts house in Surrey. Last year, we were by the sea, in Marazion, Cornwall. This year we chose the Loire region of France. 

I have loved all three retreats and I’ve come away from each with new enthusiasm, new insights, new knowledge. I think that for me, this was the best one yet. 

Why was that? It was all about getting the balance right. Our first retreat was too short for the kind of deep-dive experience writers seek. A retreat is all about getting in touch with your creativity in a location where the everyday cares and distractions of normal life no longer interrupt. I came back from Surrey with a new idea but little actual writing done. 

Cornwall is for me a spiritual home. I have been in love with its landscape and history for more than two decades. Maybe this got in the way during the Marazion retreat. As the group member who found and co-ordinated the property let, I was so intent on making the experience perfect for everyone else that I lost sight of what I was there to do. Once again, I came home having not been as productive as I’d intended, though I had learned a lot about publishing and marketing from the multi-published authors in our group. 

If you go on a retreat, it’s important not to undervalue the non-writing time. Things go on that are intangible; they may not seem obviously practical or developmental but actually they are. When I look back at all three retreats, I can see how our friendships have deepened. How it is crucial to be with people you trust. How we root for each other, nag one another, sympathise with one another, give each other ideas and information. How we share laughter and anecdotes and strategies. How we defend one another in the context of a publishing world that can be hostile or frustrating or plain incomprehensible. We steady one another. We reach out from our little writing cells and know someone will be there to reply, cajole, soothe, giggle, share indignation, gossip, inspire.

The French trip had minor downsides. The travelling was onerous. The weather wasn’t great. But we could cope with that. There were incredible pluses: we shared an amazing gite in the Loire countryside. We spent time alone or in small groups or all together. The gite had great facilities, including not one, but two swimming pools! We went on an excursion to the beautiful château of Amboise. Those members who live in France were indefatigable in their efforts to ensure we were all comfortable and well fed. Our evenings were spent in gales of laughter as we played word games and shared mystery readings. 

I went to France with a plan: I would not burden myself with notes and research and all the paraphernalia of the two major projects I am engaged in. I took my iPad and a slim notebook, that’s all. I chose to write something different, for publication this summer. I was disciplined: I went on the Amboise trip but not on two other excursions. I retired to my gorgeous peaceful room after breakfast and wrote in bursts until lunch and after lunch, knowing that the evening’s fellowship (and wine!) would be my reward for a productive day. I struggled during the first couple of days, then it all gelled. I came home with 10,000 new words for my new project. I couldn’t have been happier. 

Back home it is hard to maintain the momentum, of course, but I am still plugging away. Already we are discussing where our next retreat will be … 

Photos above: notebooks I made for my friends; at the Château d’Amboise; in my writing room; breakfast spread; headshot by Jean Gill

Advice if you’re going on a retreat:

• Make sure you go with the right people. A retreat is about community. It’s about support and sharing, not competition. You need to feel you can trust your fellow writers and you can open up to them. Over the years, my friendships with my fellow retreaters, some of whom I met initially online, has grown ever-deeper and more invaluable to me. 

• It’s not all about you. It’s about listening and supporting. It’s about moving out of your own self-obsessed grumbles and resentments about writing and publishing. It’s about knowing you are not alone and neither is anyone else in the group. Knowing that you can offer fellowship, love and support to your friends is infinitely precious. 

• Make the most of the skills you bring. I’m an editor and writing coach. Several of us are genius marketers with experience of traditional, independent and hybrid publishing. My friend Jean Gill is a fantastic photographer and took new headshots of me for my author website!

• It’s about the right choices: the length of the retreat, its location, its comfort. There is no point in not being kind to yourself. A retreat is a celebration. Choose somewhere with comfy beds and space around you, tables to write at, nature to contemplate, good food and drink. A retreat is not a penance: it is a reward for your commitment to the present and future of your writing life. 

• Make plans. Go to the retreat with a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. It may be that you’re not particularly interested in coming away with a massive word count, which is not a badge of honour to be waved – after all, those new words may not be the best words in the end … You may go on a retreat to edit a completed novel, brainstorm a new one or find a way of becoming unstuck. You may come home with a single sheet of paper on which is sketched out an outline or a new plot-thread – result! This is precious time you are giving yourself, so spend some time beforehand evaluating which task or aim you want to focus on. Otherwise (and I speak from experience) you will hop about from task to task and not get any of them done to your satisfaction.  

• Go equipped. Consider keeping it simple. I chose not to take my laptop and my files of research and outline notes this time. This freed me up. You might take only a notebook which you use in a random way, jotting ideas, single lines, whole passages down as they come to you. This is liberating. You know that when you come home you can expand and organise from these beginnings. 

• Decide if the internet is important and if it is, what use you are going to make of it. There’s no point spending a fortune on a trip if all you do is doom-scroll on social media. But if you have a launch coming up, posting photos of your writing life keeps your readers interested. If you’re writing a tricky scene, you may need the internet to consult sources and facts. Or, like me, you simply type xxx at any point you’re unsure about and you do the follow-up checking when you get home. 

• Think about how you’re going to maintain some of the momentum after your return. Not just the momentum – the spirit of the retreat. This is hard, I know, because real life comes washing back into your consciousness like a tide. Consider having a Facebook group with your friends, dedicated to the retreat and its aftermath so you can keep in touch with the people who shared the experience with you. Consider keeping a writing journal during the retreat, that you can reread to reawaken the feelings and thoughts you had while you were there.
  

 Photos above: Amboise house; fireplace and bed in château; mural of French Resistance hero Jean Moulin in Chartres; carvings and rose window in Chartres (on way to the retreat); Château d’Amboise

To Alison, Carol, Clare, Jane, Jean and Karen - thank you so much for your friendship!

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Writers Beware: the risks of two tiny but dangerous words Part 1

As a writing coach and editor, I find myself – as you’d expect – repeating some types of advice over and over. I’m sure you can imagine the kind of thing: show don’t tell, don’t overload your story opening, etc etc. Today I’m going to talk about two small, innocuous words.

 Here’s the first: ‘and’.

 Here’s the second: ‘then’.

Put them together, and you may be in trouble.

Let’s start with storytelling technique. Think of a small child, excited as heck, talking about a great day out with the family. The narrative spills out in a breathless rush: ‘We got in the car and then we got out and then we went in and then the first thing I saw was an ice-cream van and there was a man in the park and then Mummy got me an ice cream from the van and it was great. And then … and then … and then …’

Telling a story like this is true to life, of course. We experience events in a sequence of moments, one following another. The child is uttering breathy little exclamations and the enthusiasm is there. So is the desire to be all-encompassing, all-inclusive. Not a single detail is missed out.

What’s the result? How is the listener (wearing an indulgent smile on their face) feeling? Bored, maybe. Impatient. When is the good stuff coming? What are the highlights? Can we cut to them, please?

Watch out for how often you use ‘and then’. It may make sense and it may be logical to tell the story that way, but those two little words kill the thing stone dead. Why is that? They emphasize sequence, but they don’t give any sense at all of a storyline varying its pace or its focus. They don’t give a sense of highs and lows. If life is one damn thing after another, ‘andthennery’ stresses that. Before you know it you’re raising your hand to your mouth to muffle a giant yawn.

When we ask, all eagerness, ‘What happens next?’ we aren’t just talking about sequence. We’re talking about incremental steps: the next level of tension, expectation and drama. Because plots aren’t just one damn thing after another. Plots are shaped by the skill of the writer not just to be sequential but consequential. Actions breed reactions. External factors barge in and mess up the characters’ fine plans. Nothing stays the same. A plot is full of the ebb and flow of tension. It climbs from the plain up through the foothills to the high peaks of drama and resolution.

‘Andthennery’ doesn’t make us hold our breath. ‘Andthennery’ doesn’t make us see dramatic connections. Whenever you find yourself typing the word ‘and’, stop and take a look. What are you joining up here? Two moments or thoughts in the most simple of equations? ‘We went to the park and we bought an ice-cream.’ So what? Where is the plot? Where is the story?

If you add ‘then’ you’re in even worse trouble. One foot in front of the other, plodding along. This happened, then that happened, then the other happened.

Consider how to inject that dramatic interest, that sense of drama. For example, instead of ‘then’, use ‘when’. You’ll immediately create a sense of intrigue and expectation. ‘When we went to the park, I saw a strange man over by the trees who was looking at us while my Mum bought the ice cream.’

Want to know who the man was? Curious about why he is looking at the mother and child? Do you start to wonder whether the mother knows who he is? Has the mother glanced towards him with a tiny shake of her head? What is going on? What is the story here?

That’s what ‘when’ does. It opens up the possibility of consequences. It kicks off the questions in the reader’s head. And it’s not just ‘when’ that does the trick: try ‘but’, ‘however’, ‘therefore’, ‘although’ …

In Part 2 of this post I’ll be taking a look at ‘andthennery’ in a different context. Till then, happy writing!

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Kickstart your Imagination: how Writing Prompts Work

Let’s start with why I’m talking about writing prompts at all. A strangely organic process has been taking place over the past few months. It began when we headed into lockdown: I started thinking about how I could help writers by running a free online writing retreat session. (By the way, I’m about to run my fourth one tomorrow – you can sign up here).

Loads of 40 people signed up for it, which blew me away. Then I had to come up with the structure for the session. I could, of course, have welcomed attendees, set a timer and let them get on with their current work in progress.

But I felt more was needed, so I set about designing two separate writing sprint sessions, each with eight prompts, one of which was a picture. That became the template for each retreat, book-ended with discussion and chat.

Five weeks ago, I started thinking again. I know, it’s a bad habit I’ve fallen into …

I was thinking of the people who couldn’t attend the online retreats – or didn’t want to because they didn’t like the tech aspect of joining an online meeting. What about them? I decided I’d design a little PDF of prompts for them.

I came up with prompts. And more prompts. I spent my late evenings on Canva, designing the pages. I added workbook pages and advice on creating a retreat when you’re at home. 53 pages on, I realised I had more than a quick PDF resource: I had a self-study mini-course. It went live on Tuesday and until midnight on Sunday 21st you can get it for $17, which is less than half price. (Find out more here.)

But, back to the whole notion of prompts. I have fun creating them because I imagine the kinds of stories they’ll inspire. We writers are eternally afraid of the blank mind, the blank page. The urge to write that has no focus on what to write.

So when the Muse isn’t making home deliveries, we need those triggers, those little goads to the imagination. And what’s fascinating is how writers can make such different stories out of the same prompts – that’s certainly been evident in the online retreats so far.

Prompts work in different ways, so let’s explore some of them and why they work.

• There’s the ‘opening sentence’ kind of prompt. It acts like a springboard into what follows. It’s like you stop telling a joke just before the punchline and you let someone else come up with that punchline and deliver it. A trigger like this works because we like to fill in the blanks, the gaps between given facts. Conversely, you could set an end-line and ask the writer to imagine the story that led up to that point.

• Then there’s dialogue – sometimes just a single speech, that works because it is so immediate, so intimate. You’re pulled into an exchange, a dynamic between characters. The speech makes you think of voice and tone and attitude – of the character who’s likely to speak in that way.

• Some prompts work because they’re evocative. A descriptive phrase, a metaphor, can create a mood, a scene. The writer drops in, looks around, imagines the kind of story that could be set there, the kind of situation that would give rise to that particular image.

• Then there’s the picture prompt. I always include them because some people’s imaginations are more easily triggered by seeing an image – it could be a face or an object or a place. A Mediterranean harbour. An old house or a distant planet. A flower held in a hand. A war memorial. (Are any of these triggering a story in you?)

• You can have theme prompts, where you present the trigger as a simple subject statement: ‘the pity of war’, for instance. Interestingly, these may not be the best route to imaginative story-creation. They can be the doorway to polemic instead, where message dominates what is written. It’s important to maintain empathy, to go into and inhabit story, rather than just preach.

• Finally, there are the single word prompts. Deceptively simple, even slightly flat at first sight, these are the prompts that yield richness because they are more oblique, more of a hint, more open to interpretation.

Prompts are a resource to turn to when you’re feeling restive and when, as I said earlier, you want to write but you don’t know what you want to write. You hand over responsibility to a single word or image or teasing phrase. Your imagination, like a dog that’s flopped in the corner on a hot day, stirs, rises, starts to look eager at the prospect of a walk.

Keep a box or book of writing prompts by you, if you can. Treat the box like a lucky dip. Flip the pages of the book. Pick a prompt without too much thought. Toy with it, turn it this way and that in the light. Let it start to fire the neurons in your creative brain. I promise you it will.

Interested in using prompts to restart or kickstart your creativity? My new self-study mini-course, Create your Home Writing Retreat is here. Plus I’m now creating two bonuses.

• First, for as long as I run my free retreats the prompts we’ve used in each session will be added to the course.

• Secondly, I’m designing a new PDF, Create your Writer’s Prompt Box, so you can build your own inspiring resource, one which will stand you in good stead on those dry days.

Join my free online writing retreat session Saturday 20th June - go here.

Create your Home Writing Retreat - go here.

Find solace in creating your home writing retreat - 7 tips and an invitation

In ‘normal’ life – which with every passing day right now takes on the shape of a mirage – how often have you dreamt of going on a writing retreat? Now, we’re in a time of crisis and there’s no choice: we can’t get away to write. We may have extra time at home, but that is time we didn’t choose to allocate to writing. It’s time where we may be distracted by family concerns and commitments, such as home-schooling our children. It’s also time in which to fret about the future – and fretting isn’t good for the creative muse.

All the same, people are pursuing new interests and spheres of knowledge. We’re rediscovering the pleasures of crafting. We’re learning languages or doing online fitness workouts. It’s quite amazing.

And you? You want to write. So today’s post is all about seeing your home (which at times may be feeling like a prison or a cramped overcrowded madhouse) as a haven. A retreat, in fact.

Here’s 7 tips for setting up your writing retreat at home.

1.  Choose a time. Your commitments are not going away. The dog needs a walk. The elder child needs to be coaxed into doing some schoolwork. The toddler needs to be watched in case they blunder into a sharp corner or decide that shoving a clothes-peg up their nose is the greatest idea in the world. You need to review the shape of your day – a shape that may have changed radically since lockdown. You used to write when the kids were at school. Now you may have to opt to rise before they do, or stay up late after they’ve gone to bed. You may need to bargain: you will give the family time and attention on condition that they give you your ‘me’ time to write. The other thing that’s important in all this is to try to negotiate a time that suits them and suits you, which is about knowing your own ‘best’ times of day in terms of alertness and creative flow.

2.  Choose a place. When we dream of retreats we dream of cottages by the sea or high-ceilinged rooms with a view or serene libraries, hushed as a monastery. Well, not now. You are going to have to claim some territory in that over-crowded land you call home. It may not be ideal, but it is worth selecting a location within the house where you put a flag up saying ‘This is my writing territory’. You may have a loft, a shed, or a spare room. You may not: then you’re going to have to choose your bedroom, or a corner of the living-room or the end of the kitchen table. Once again, it’s clear you’ll need to negotiate because all these places have other claimants too. But I think it is time to be tough, especially if you allow other people in the household to mark out their special places as well. In your chosen location, put down some possessions associated with your writing: your notebook and pens, the book you’re taking notes from, the laptop. These are visual cues to you and to the family that you mean business.

3. Make the special place just that – special. It’s important to see your writing retreat as a pleasure. So make everything about it as joyous or as peaceful as possible. Work in natural or good lighting. Sit on a comfortable supportive seat. Play music in the background, if that helps you. Use scented oils in a diffuser. I use a Tisserand pulse-spot roll-on which has rosemary, mint and bergamot in it. Write in a beautiful notebook where even to touch the paper is a pleasure. Use your favourite pen. Wear a silk kimono if you want to, or your fleecy onesie.

4. Ring-fence your creativity. You need to put up an imaginary barrier to distractions or worries or guilt. This can take the form of an actual sign you put up: Keep Out, or Silence Please (I have a Bodleian Library Silence sign I hang on the doorknob). You can also have a notice or card propped up in front of you with a favourite quote or a few words saying ‘You can do it’ or ‘Stay with it’ or ‘You deserve time to write’ or ‘Your words matter’ or any other encouraging message you want to give yourself. Switch off the distractions of emails and social media notifications. Don’t listen to the news (I am rationing tuning into news bulletins these days). Ask your family members to write down any questions or requests and place them gently just outside your place of creativity: you’ll attend to them later. Wear headphones, not just to shut out extraneous noise but as a visual signal to the others that you are, literally, in your own head-space right now. Have a pad of post-its by you and if any distraction, reminder for your to-do list or anxious thought arises, jot it down there and push it aside, for later. Don’t break the now of your retreat.

5.  Have modest goals. If you’re feeling stressed, don’t add to that stress by being too ambitious. Set a reasonable time-limit and break the big creative task down into smaller, achievable goals. Write a poem. Write a scene or a flash fiction. Feel good about that. Don’t equate sheer volume with value. If you have found the perfect image for how you or your character feels, that writing session has been totally worth it.

6.  Give yourself breaks to rise and walk about the room, or do some stretches. (As I write this, I am actually chuckling at myself, because I am notorious for locking myself into a fixed, hunched position for hours on end. I need to take my own advice!)

7.  Find support and community if aloneness isn’t working for you. Move beyond the family who are on your side but who may not necessarily understand how you’re feeling. Join fellow creatives in co-working sessions. Just knowing that other people are quietly working with you can be a real encouragement and solace. It can also create a sense of accountability, if you have buddies to discuss the session with, before and after, sharing intentions and what was achieved. It’s a paradox that you need to create a kind of ‘bubble’ round yourself for flow to happen, but that bubble isn’t burst in the presence of other creatives.

UPDATE: I’ve now developed a self-study mini-course, Create your Home Writing Retreat. Find out more here.

Invitation: I’ve just run my second free online writing retreat (Sat 4th April), after the first went so well a couple of weeks ago. Attendees have reached out to me afterwards saying how valuable they’ve found these sessions so it’s likely I will host more! If you want to know when I arrange the next one, please sign up for the Fictionfire newsletter via the form below - you can unsubscribe at any time.

Can being ill ever benefit your writing?

You may have noticed this blog has been quiet for a little while. It’s because I’ve been fighting with my body. Or, to be more precise, I’ve been learning not to fight my body.

At the end of last year, I ran into a wall. I had been pushing myself, the way I do. When it complained, I told my body to shut up and keep on going. This is what we are all so guilty of. We live in a society that says do it, have it, keep burning the candle at both ends. Face it, conquer it. Your body is your vehicle. Your body is your servant. Your body is not as important to you as your mind and soul. It is merely the container for those abstract, superior elements. Exhaustion is your default state – but that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It shows you’re putting in effort; in modern culture, striving and effort are gold badges of worth.

Then there comes the day when the body says ‘Enough’. It tells you, ‘I’ve had it with this attitude. I’ve had it with you not taking care of yourself. Of me.’

That rebellion can take the form of an exhaustion so draining there is no functionality left. Illness creates a fog in the mind. That questing, rational brain of yours can no longer dart about. It is lassoed from below and chained to a body that now asserts itself as having primacy.

Or a grumbling, niggling level of illness suddenly grows into something unmistakable. Something that fills the foreground of your awareness and stops you thinking of anything else. The body’s main weapon in this is pain. Pain makes you sit up and pay attention, like nothing else does or can.

This is what happened to me. Two health issues reached crisis point in December. I was told both required operations. One of those operations I have now had (the other isn’t so urgent). Three weeks on from the operation, I look back and take stock of it all. For weeks beforehand, virtually unable to eat and living with the fear of severe pain if I ate the wrong thing, my energy levels and my mental acuity both went through the floor. In the recovery phase, I have had to learn patience. Passivity. A willingness to wait. I am not good at those things!

Regular readers know I’m writing a book on mindset for writers. Oh, the irony! I had to live my own advice. I had to understand that I couldn’t push on with the book and publish as speedily as I had planned. Nor did I want to, once I had accepted the situation. Why? Because, quite simply, the book would not have been good enough. The book wouldn’t have been as rich and considered as I wanted it to be. There is pushing on, there is driving on – and there is the old proverb about more haste, less speed. I would add: more haste, poorer quality.

So how have I used the time of this health crisis? I have learned to sit and think, quietly. I have learned to doze and not feel guilty about that. I have learned to give my body time to rest and heal. It deserves that care and respect.

I am lucky enough to work mainly at home, but my new morning regime has involved staying in bed, reading and writing, in what I call ‘the bed office’. This has been amazingly productive in the last three weeks, as my brain revives and with it the enthusiasm and joy I feel about the book. It was not dead; it was merely sleeping.

I have written parts I would not have written had I not had this crisis. This is the creative paradox of it all.

If you are a writer and your health challenges you, either temporarily or continually, here are some recommendations I hope will help you:

·        Maintain awareness that you are not separate from your body.

·        Imagination is a wonderful thing but it can be two-edged in that we imagine the worst results from our symptoms (even without late-night Google searches!) However, remember that it’s your imagination that gives you the empathy to be a richer writer.

·        Try to turn resistance and resentment into acceptance. We use the ‘fighter’ image so often when it comes to illness, but it isn’t always the appropriate way to look at it.

·        If you can’t write, use the time to read and ponder – you are refilling the creative well.

·        Illness isn’t romantic. You’re not one of the Brontë sisters (and what they endured was pretty hellish). Illness isn’t pretty. But it is human and it brings out human kindness. Accept help from others even if you’re the stubbornly independent type.

·        Do what you can, not what you think you must. Do the minor things and don’t obsess about the central task you really can’t cope with right now.

·        If the work has worth, it won’t go away. It will wait for you. Have faith.

Interested in reading The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset? Sign up here for advance news and sneak peeks in the run-up to publication.

I am really excited to be talking about mindset during the Women in Publishing online summit March 2-8 2020! Grab your free pass here. This gives you 24 hour access to an incredible range of talks and presentations on all aspects of writing and publishing. Or you can upgrade to the Full Access pass at an early bird rate before March 1.

Chasing squirrels: the distraction of too many ideas and why it matters to stay focused

New writers often worry about how to find ideas. If they’ve had a good idea they worry about whether they’ll ever have another. The truth is, many of us don’t suffer from a lack of ideas. Quite the opposite: ideas pop into our heads, scream out at us from newspaper articles or history books or memories or dreams. Ideas are coming at us all the time.

I remember seeing a Facebook video of a dog leaping at soap bubbles pumped out by a bubble-gun. It was going frantic, darting and somersaulting, snapping at those floating orbs. As soon as its jaws closed, the bubble would burst. Meanwhile, other bubbles soared out of reach, leaving the poor mutt with nothing.

You may have seen the Disney/Pixar film Up, featuring another delightful hound, an inane smiley pup who craves to be loved and to be helpful to humans, but is eternally distracted – 'Squirrel!’ – and dashes off after the elusive creature. He just can’t help himself.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? When ideas come, they distract you like the darting squirrel. They arrive all shiny and unspoilt, like that iridescent soap-bubble. Your impulse is to chase it but as you reach out, another floats by. You want that one too.

Try to resist the urge, however Pavlovian it is, however conditioned by the eternal human quest for the new.

That idea, that story you’re with right now? Yes, the shine may have come off it a little. You may feel you’ve lost that first enthusiasm. But you’ve come a long way with it – don’t desert it now. Stay with it and see it through.

Disengage from the distraction of new ideas and give the old one the attention and focus it deserves. If you record your new ideas in a notebook or Evernote file, they can wait. Good ideas are not soap bubbles, after all. They will endure, if they are any good. They’ll mature and grow in your sub-consciousness. And when you turn to them, if you’ve finished your previous story-task, you’ll be able to show them the commitment they truly deserve.

No squirrels.

Here’s one of Henry Miller’s work schedule rules:

Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

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Chase and catch ideas, share your work and ask me anything at this Saturday’s Creative Brainstorm workshop: visit the courses page for details!