Writer's Retreats - give your writing a massive boost by Sherryl Clark

One of the hardest things about writing is maintaining focus. It seems the writers who have no trouble with this also often have no other job. Or they are so committed to their novel that they get up an hour earlier to write – every day.

The rest of us continue to struggle. We have to work at jobs we usually don’t enjoy much for 7-10 hours every day, we have family to spend quality time with, chores, bills to pay… The time for working on our novels gets squeezed from every direction and it’s hard to find the time and energy to write.

That’s why writing retreats are so beneficial - and often downright amazing.

Not just because you have a week or a month (or perhaps three months if you are lucky) to do nothing but focus on your novel and write. But because of what it creates for you in other ways. A writing retreat is the perfect opportunity to grow your writing, and to grow as a writer and learn what that means for you.

Time

There are 24 hours in a day. You might spend 8 of those sleeping. That leaves 16 hours a day for your novel. For thinking about it, plotting, coming up with new/better ideas, developing characters, daydreaming, reading, walking. Finally, you can devote real time to all the things that make your novel deeper and stronger and better. And these are all things that real life pushes out of your head as it shouts at you to keep moving, keep up. When you have 16 hours a day, you can stop and listen to your novel. In a week, that’s 112 hours. In a month, that’s 480 hours!

Headspace

With time comes headspace. What also produces wonderful, creative headspace is no distractions. No work to turn up for (don’t take your work with you, don’t be responding to the boss’s emails etc). No family or spouse to want your attention. If you really want to stay in touch, schedule a nightly or weekly call. That simple action keeps your headspace clear for writing.

Guard your headspace with everything you’ve got! Inside it sits your creativity, your ideas, your daydreaming, your inspirations. Your meandering thoughts about your characters and plot that produce new insights. Your novel. Your writing. Your own voice.

A single place to write

Often on retreats you will have your own writing room. It may be your bedroom. You may be offered a shared studio space, as I was on my Finland retreat/residency, but in the end I was so glad I stayed in my room with my desk full of writing stuff, and my view across the lake to the forest.

You may think you will work better in the shared space, surrounded by other working writers. I would tell you to resist, to embrace solitude. Studies have shown that open-plan offices reduce productivity and concentration, and even inhibit collaboration by up to 70%! Consider the possibility that your desire to be in a shared space might be a form of procrastination.

When you have your own writing space and desk, you can spread out. I had printed pages on the floor, notes and images propped along the windowsill, and books on the small couch when I needed a break to read and chill out. You can really make the space your own, which helps to keep you focused.

Focus

You probably looked at that 480 hours in a month and thought – no way could I write non-stop for that long. Actually, you won’t. You’re not super-human. But for the hours every day when you are writing, you can stay totally focused and engaged with your work, your characters, your imaginary world. This deep focus need only be for a couple of hours at a time. In the beginning, you might find even one hour is hard to maintain.

But practice – the time to keep at it, and retrain yourself to focus completely on your novel – will increase your focus time gradually and result in days where you can write for three hours or more and time will fly. And you will produce words, lots of them.

Words

On my Finland retreat, I wrote almost 40,000 words of a crime novel. But I also wrote a children’s book that just kind of burst out of me – because I was alone, I was focused, I had headspace and time, and it happened. 

Sure, people write 50,000 words during Nanowrimo. I’ve done it. But I felt those words were rushed and the story didn’t really work, and the writing was jammed in amongst everything else I was doing. The 40K I wrote on the retreat was deeper and plotted better. I felt the characters came alive more, and I was able to spend time on research that inspired a big new idea in the story that I was really happy with.

Where to retreat to?

My residency in Finland was by application, and I did have to pay for my air fares and an amount towards my room and board, but it was totally worth it. There are many writing retreats offered all around the world. If you want to stay somewhere not too far from your home (and most of us have travel limits at the moment), do a search for “writing retreats [my state]”. I found at least four in my country within a couple of minutes. 

If you want to make big travel plans and be in a different country, widen your search to the countries you’d like to visit. My dream is a writing retreat in France one day! Check prices, if it’s a commercial enterprise. If it’s somewhere you can apply with a scholarship, check requirements and gather any publishing credits and references you can. They all help.

Make your own retreat

You can do this on your own, or with writer friends (but everyone has to promise to stay in their rooms and write during the day – anyone who just wants a holiday and to hang out is going to ruin it). Find a hotel or motel you can afford, in an accessible place (beach, city, mountains) and book as many rooms as you need. Or just one for you. An AirBNB is great if you are on your own as they often come with kitchens where you can eat when you feel like it. They also come at all budget levels.

What will you write?

That’s up to you. It can be great to go with a planned project, like a novel or collections of pieces. But sometimes you just need to go on a writing retreat to get your writing mojo back, to feel again what it’s like to be a writer, to have headspace to let ideas and inspiration in. That’s where growth happens – when you give it time and space and creative energy.

All the same, a project can help you with focus, and focus produces more ideas, and then things really do just burst out. I can testify to that!

Sherryl Clark

Sherryl’s verse novel, “Mina and the Whole Wide World”, is the one she wrote in Finland, and it later won the Australian Prime Minister’s Award for Children’s Literature.