One of the greatest gifts a writer can give to themselves is time out of the chaos of daily life to Just. Write. Oh yeah, I’m talking about a writing retreat. It was at a writing retreat at Phillip Island between lockdowns that I finished a huge draft of Summer, in Between, the one that got me five successful pitches where the publishers I pitched to asked for the full. It was another writing retreat, also at Phillip Island, where I made a plan of attack to rewrite Summer, in Between after a manuscript assessment that told me where I’d gone wrong between successful pitching and the ‘yeah, no thanks,’ after sending the full manuscript. I entered that reworked manuscript into the 2024 Hawkeye Publishing Unpublished Manuscript Development Prize, and the rest, they say, well, you know what they say!
I’m recently home from an incredible week of writing as a KSP Fellow where I had the divine gift of a week in a cabin on a property on the edges of the Perth Hills. I’m talking towering gums right outside my window, and a gorgeous national park on my doorstep for brain-clearing walks.
Anyhoo, my point is that writing retreats are wonderful for so many reasons, but for me, the difference between a fist pumping, productive, successful retreat, and one where I fluff around and do bugger all, is preparation. Just like a pav. Let’s get you set up for success. You see, it’s much easier to lock yourself away when you know you’ve covered some bases so when you reemerge from your cave, blinking in the sunlight like a startled mole, it’s not to a bin fire. Well, not more than usual.
I take four things into every writing retreat:
Productive work habits
I write in sprints in big chunks of the day, writing for at least 7.5 hours against some specific goals such as word counts or completed chapters.
Rest
Afternoon naps, early(ish) to bed for a decent sleep because the intensive focus of a writing retreat is exhausting.
Wellness
Good food and walks in nature.
Treats
A gorgeous novel, good TV/movie, fancy, luscious body products and beautiful tea. And chocolate. Of course!
These four things don’t happen by accident but by design. I never want to step into days of intense writing without a plan of attack. I prepare for them against the structure and flow of time during my retreat:
- 6-8am – Walk/run, breakfast, shower
- 8.30am – Organise writing for the day – get outlines in order, go over notes, reacquaint self with narrative, set some goals before writing up a storm
- 1pm – Check in with the goals of the morning and intention setting for the rest of the day
- 1.15 – Lunch and a bit more writing
- 2.30- Walk in nature, rest, nap
- 4pm – Write for a bit. Often at this time, it’s reading over the day’s work, scribbling and making notes, adding to scenes, clarifying. My brain’s a bit mushy by now, so I try not to delete anything, instead, I’ll highlight it
- 5-6pm – Another walk, dinner
- 7pm – Check in with self about how the day went against goals, and intention setting for the following day. Sometimes, dinner and my walk gives me a burst of energy so I’ll keep writing, or at least make notes against what’s coming up in the manuscript.
- 8.30 – Read, eat chocolate, whatever helps me wind down ahead of another big day of solid writing.
So, how do I prepare for a retreat?
Space
At home, I have a dedicated workspace where I have my favourite pen, mug and all my project notebooks and bits and bobs. I sit with them, and that’s the signal to my brain to start writing. Here’s the kicker though – they are all completely portable. I keep my individual writing projects in their own boxes, so if I want to nick off on a retreat, I just grab the relevant project box, grab my laptop and off I trot. I enter my writing cave, put my phone on Do Not Disturb, close my door, and be all there.
Time
One thing I learned early on is that the time for retreat is mine. I make it sacred and guard it with my life! This means telling the people in my life that I can’t be disturbed, that I’ll have my phone on Do Not Disturb and that I’ll answer any texts and what not in my breaks. I’m blessed to have an incredible family that is highly supportive of this. I take a break from social media too, ideally.
Food, glorious food
I stock up on high protein yoghurts and granola. Depending on where I’m retreating, a couple of days out, I cook a batch of beautiful soup and get myself a bread roll from the exy-side of the bakery, and maybe a scroll or a danish while I’m at it. If I’m far from home, I’ll buy the soups in the deli section of the supermarket which are actually really yum. I make up some hiking-esque snack packs of mixed nuts, pretzels, chocolate and raspberries/red frogs. Dinner for me is often more soup as I don’t want to waste my writing time cooking, or I have a quiche that I’ve bought alongside my exy roll at the bakery. On longer retreats, I might have dinner at a local pub to get some decent protein into me, or some carbs – hello, chicken parma and chips! I don’t really love to have breakfast out because that tends to eat into my writing time which as per Time above, is so very precious.
On goals
It sounds simple, so simple that it can be avoided, but I know what I want to achieve over the course of the retreat, as well as each day and in each session. I keep a writing journal for every time I sit down to write:
- Date/time
- How I’m feeling about my writing
- What I’m thinking about
- To do this session
- Done
- To do next session
- How feeling at the end of this session
Ordinarily, I’d do this in the morning and then check in with it at the end of the writing day, but during the retreat I answer the questions as I commence each block to keep myself on target.
Writing block plans of attack
I write in sprints so I’m not sitting for hours at a time. Nobody wants to come out of the writing cave with a frozen neck! I mix it up, and write for 20 minutes with a 2 minute walk around, or 30 minutes or even 15 minutes. The main goal is to decide on a time, turn on my timer and write until the buzzer goes off, then get up out of my seat and move my body.
In a first draft, I like to muck around with NANO-esque word count adventures:
Word count pub crawl:
- 15 min sprint x 6 beating word count each time
- 15 min sprint x 2 beating word count each time
- 30 min sprint beating word count of total so far
- 30 min sprint beating word count of last sprint
- 1000 word sprint
- 3 digits – write as many words as the last 3 digits in your word count eg 1520 words total, write 520 in this sprint
- 1000 word sprint
- 1 hour
- 10 min sprint x 3 beating word count each time
- 3000 words in sprint
Word count party crawl:
- 5 min sprint
- sprint to 100 words
- double count so far (double the total of words written in 5 mins + 100 words)
- sprint to the end of a song (maybe not Taylor’s 10 min All Too Well)
- sprint to nearest 1000
- 3 digits – write as many words as the last 3 digits in your word count eg 1520 words total, write 520 in this sprint
- 15 min sprint
- sprint to nearest 1000
- sprint to the end of the scene/chapter
- 5 min sprint
Finally, a playlist or two can always bump up the energy. I go for the vibe of what I’m writing, stick that into the spotify search bar and see what pops up!
Look, I completely understand that stepping into a writing cave is a mean feat, and clearing your schedule can feel like a herculean task, but on the other side of a retreat? I beam with pride at what I accomplish.