I have been thinking a lot lately about writing retreats.
More specifically, I have been thinking about running writing retreats, which feels like exactly the sort of thing that starts with me saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’ and ends six months later with me standing in the kitchen of a large country house at 7am wondering why I’m responsible for 14 people’s coffee requirements.
I do love the idea though.
I’ve done a lot more creative writing teaching over the last few years, running everything from one-off workshops to longer courses, and it has become one of my favourite parts of my work. I love talking about writing, obviously, but what I’ve come to appreciate even more is what happens when you get a group of people together regularly and give them permission to take their writing seriously. I’ve been on about five Arvon courses over the last 15 years and I have loved them all – that’s the kind of vibe I’d love to capture.
One of my groups in particular has been together for quite a while now. They know each other well, they understand each other’s writing, they’re comfortable enough to be supportive without feeling they have to say everything is brilliant, and they have developed the sort of easy group dynamic where we can get a surprising amount of work done while also going off on completely irrelevant tangents.
They’ve asked me a few times now whether I would consider organising a writing retreat for them, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether this might be the next logical step.
What would we actually DO on a writing retreat?
This is the bit I’ve been pondering, because I don’t think I’d want it to feel like simply taking one of my normal writing courses and making everybody sleep over. The appeal of a retreat, surely, is having time?
One of the things people talk about a lot in my workshops is how difficult it can be to make proper space for writing in normal life. You might technically have an hour free, but that hour is at the kitchen table with a load of washing staring accusingly at you from the corner, three emails you need to answer and the vague feeling that you ought to be doing something more useful.
There is something very different about physically going away and saying, ‘For the next two days, this is what I am doing.’
I imagine a retreat having some structured sessions, because I do think it’s useful to have prompts and exercises and someone giving the weekend a bit of shape, but I’d want plenty of unstructured writing time too. Perhaps a workshop in the morning, a few hours to work independently, then something sociable later on where people could talk about what they were working on, ask questions or share bits if they wanted to.
There would also need to be snacks. I feel quite strongly about this.
The fantasy writing retreat in my head
Obviously, once I started thinking about it I immediately skipped over all the practical considerations and began mentally choosing my bedroom.
In my head we are in a big, slightly rambling house somewhere beautiful, preferably with a huge kitchen table, comfy sofas, lots of bedrooms and enough different corners that people can disappear for a couple of hours without having to write their novel sitting on their bed.
I’ve been looking at the kind of larger properties designed specifically for groups travelling together. I think that would work much better than a hotel for the sort of retreat I have in mind. I wouldn’t want everyone disappearing back to separate hotel rooms between sessions; part of the attraction would be having that shared space and the feeling that we had temporarily created our own little writing world.
Ideally there would be somewhere nice to walk as well. I’m a big believer in walking when I’m stuck with something, partly because it genuinely helps and partly because going for a walk feels much more wholesome than lying on the bed eating biscuits and scrolling Instagram, despite taking approximately the same amount of time.
If there happened to be a pub within walking distance, I would not object.
Would it have to be terribly serious?
Absolutely not.
In fact, this is probably the thing that appeals to me most about running my own retreats. There are lots of writing retreats out there that look wonderful, but some of them also look a tiny bit intimidating. I don’t particularly want to spend a weekend discussing my creative practice in hushed voices over herbal tea.
I want people to write, and I want them to come away feeling like they’ve achieved something, but I also want them to have fun.
One of the things I like most about teaching established groups is seeing how much the social side matters. Writing is fundamentally quite a solitary activity. You sit on your own making things up and occasionally Google ‘how long does it take to die from cyanide poisoning’ and hope nobody ever examines your search history.
Being around other people who understand why you do this is surprisingly lovely. A retreat could be part workshop, part focused writing time and part weekend away with people who don’t think it’s weird that you want to spend 20 minutes discussing whether your fictional murderer would realistically have access to a walk-in freezer.
There are, admittedly, practicalities
This is normally the point in one of my ideas where I discover that something I had imagined as charming and spontaneous actually requires a spreadsheet. There would be accommodation to book, obviously, and food to organise, and I’d need to work out how many people made sense for a group. Too few and the cost per person could become ridiculous; too many and we’re basically on a school residential trip.
I’d also have to decide how long to make it. A full week sounds glorious in theory, but realistically I think a weekend or perhaps two or three nights would be much more accessible, particularly for people who have jobs, children or other responsibilities.
Then there is the question of food. Do we cook together? Do I get someone in to cater? Do I simply provide everyone with a loaf of bread and a family-sized bag of crisps and tell them we are artists and must suffer?
These are the details I have yet to establish.
Maybe this really is the next step
What makes the idea feel different from some of my other schemes, (and I do have a lot of schemes), is that people have actually asked me for it.
I’m not sitting here inventing a theoretical audience of people desperate to spend a weekend in a large house with me while I make them write character exercises. I already have writers I teach who like the idea and who know each other well enough that I can picture exactly how it would work. And once I can picture something, I am notoriously bad at leaving it as a hypothetical.
I can see the big table covered in notebooks and coffee cups. I can see people heading off after breakfast to find their own little writing spots. I can see an afternoon walk when everyone’s brains have stopped working, followed by dinner and wine and conversations about books.
Most importantly, I can see people coming home having written more in a weekend than they might normally manage in a month, feeling excited about their work again.
Which sounds pretty lovely, doesn’t it?
Although if I end up cooking breakfast for 14 people, somebody else is making the coffee.