Why Retreats: Isn’t Writing Supposed to Be Solitary?

Why Retreats: Isn’t Writing Supposed to Be Solitary?

Every writer loves to be alone. Or at least alone with all their characters in their head, not at the table across from them. So why all these offerings of retreats and workshops where we gather with more writers? 

Some writers prefer to figure out how to get to the goal of a published novel or memoir by themselves. This is often the longest and loneliest road. Others want to soak up everything someone who has already published a novel knows. I joined writing group after writing group to make sure I learned all the secrets to writing, hoping to follow everyone else who went before me down the secret passages. Here’s what I learned: there are no secrets to writing. 

So why gather with writers? Why not just stay home and get more writing done? 

One-day, half-day, or maybe even weekend or weekly evening workshops are productive ways to learn about the writing craft. You sit in a chair among a group of other writers and learn craft, or critique one another’s pages. You leave feeling like you learned new tools and you may have made a new writing friend or two. 

Retreats gather writers in travel dream spots: France, Italy, Czech Republic, San Miguel de Allende, Orcas Island, and even sailing trips off the coast of Maine. If you can dream it, there’s a writing retreat coming soon. Often it’s a week spent in a large house or boutique hotel with a small group. 

Something about being out of our comfort zone for an extended period of time is often the best thing for your writing. Stepping out of the scenery that we live in day in and day out, is not just good for the soul, but for the imagination. Imagine a new view out of the window from a chateau in France. Picture a pasture with black sheep in the background, chickens in the foreground, a table decorated as if for royalty off in the side garden. This is where you’ll be dining.

They say the way a table is decorated is often representative of how you are adored. The scenery may not be what your novel that’s set in rural Nebraska needs, but the view is refreshing and vital, and takes you into account. Shifting what we see and hear and smell every day to something different triggers new ideas for a writer. Your imagination starts to play a new record. The table setting that is prepared for you, the royal guest, is a way in which you are being nurtured so your soul can concentrate on the writing. 

And concentrate on writing you will. 

Most retreats are packed with so many things from workshopping the pages you sent in advance to the trip, to the local wineries, to the meetings with the group facilitators, to those lavish dinners, and walks in the blushing early morning light. But whether you are literally talking about your novel or memoir pages, or are walking with a new friend before dinner to stretch your legs, you are swimming in the writing world. 

Retreats are the most intensive of all writing gatherings. Maybe intense isn’t the right word. Conferences are intense with their tight schedules and zipping from hall to ballroom to coffeeshop to bar to dinner. Retreats are better described as the most intimate. You know those early days of a relationship when you spend all your time together? That’s what a retreat is like—a honeymoon for you and your story. It’s those days filled with just a small group of writers, usually six to eight writers, where you get to know one another and each other’s writing.

While champagne and chacuterie are served, you are also consuming story ideas and sipping on nuances about your tale that you hadn’t considered before but that someone suggested over breakfast. You wake up to talk of story and the day’s activities. You have a nap in the hammock behind the chateau dreaming of new scenes for your opening chapters. You ride in the car to the flea market talking of what publishers are looking for, what an agent will want to read in your query letter. You’ll listen to dinner conversation about why or why not Flannery O’Connor is better than William Faulkner at capturing the South. You’ll nestle into your bed exhausted from a day filled from daybreak to sundown with the writing life, and you’ll dream of how you too are a true writer because you can feel it in your bones with all your new friends. The camaraderie wakes you invigorated for the next day. 

Fears. We all have them when we enter a new group of people. The first day is the hardest, then each day gets easier and more relaxed. Bring a friend if you really can’t do it alone, but often the experience alone is the most rewarding. 

Retreats, they are worth every penny because every moment counts as living the dream of the writer’s life.  A week of living, breathing, and eating writing, most especially yours, is pure bliss, and you and your story deserve every luscious minute of it. 

Writing Retreat in the French Countryside with pie (avec tarte americaine)

Ignite your writing life as you spend 8 days/7 nights luxuriating in writing, discussion, personal mentoring, and camaraderie in the lush French countryside with APRIL EBERHARDT & AMY WALLEN

A perfect retreat for those who are writing a novel, memoir, essays, or stories, and seeking to learn about or reinvigorate a writing life through rigorous discussion, supportive feedback, intimate conversations in a gorgeous and delicious environment.

June 9-16, 2023

Limited to 6 participants.

FIND OUT MORE HERE