Summer Writing Retreats, the Pause that Inspires

My writing station

I just got back from a writing retreat on Cape Cod. I go to a retreat every July and January. It's an amazing, inspiring, informative, fun experience and it builds community. I often start the draft of a novel in July, and this summer was no exception. Finally, I had the time and peace of mind to plunge into an NA historical fantasy, set in the 1930s. I also had time to open a Pinterest account and create a board for my new novel. Why did I wait so long to visually organize my novel elements?! Wanna follow me there? I'll follow you back!

At the retreat we do readings in the evenings,

Our gang

and they're always helpful. There's nothing like running your newest work by fellow writers who you trust implicitly, to make sure you're on the right track with a fledgling project. Each night someone makes a dinner. Good way to sample interesting food.

Emily's veggie fest dinner

Other retreats and conferences that I recommend are Squaw Valley, the SCBWI Summer Conference out in LA (& winter one in NYC), the Mendocino Writers' Conference, the Chautauqua conference & Southampton workshop. If you have the time, you could do a residency. I have a friend who liked Ragdale.

Emily and her coconut yogurt
with lemon zest!

Stairs to beach

Helen ordering pizza

Maggie being writerly

Have you attended a retreat or conference you'd recommend?

In June, I also taught at a writers' retreat in Rosemont College for MFA students, which rocked the house. I got to try out some crazy-fun new writing prompts on them *insert evil cackle here*

My smart & uber-creative MFA students

Rosemont gargoyles

Some of the Rosemont teachers & faculty

So, do you do retreats, conferences or workshops? Have you ever organized your own? If not, how do you refresh and relight your creative spark?

Writing Retreat Renewal

photo by Helen

Recently I invited a few writer friends up to my country place for a winter retreat. We call it Idea Farm (as opposed to my Idea City blog, which I usually write while in NYC). A writing retreat is something I need to do every 6 months. In the summer, a bunch of us go to a bigger retreat, so I wanted to return the favor. One person was sidelined by gall bladder trouble, so our troop was down to three people who trust each other and work well together. Shawne is a talented novelist writing about family ghosts and Helen writes short stories, novels and reviews.

It was a perfect time to get some serious work done because it was snowy and icy outside and the wind was howling like a rabid wolf. Inside, we kept the fire stoked. I should say Helen did because I suck at arranging logs and kindling.

Our schedule: wake at 8 am and imbibe multiple cups of coffee while we gossip, talk shop, and run details of our WIPs and ideas by each other. This includes what we should name our characters and how steamy the characters and love scenes can get. Lots of belly laughs and unconditional support. Before work, we trundle off to my studio, while trying to stay aloft on the driveway aka skating rink. Once there, Helen does yoga while I use my weights, rebound trampoline and do about 75 crunches. Shawne, the sensible friend stays in the main house.

Pond view from my porch,
photo by Helen

Next it's writing time, each person to their own station. Mine is by the fire. Shawne's is in the kitchen, Helen works in a small room to "contain her abundance of energy".

I get 5,000 words done. Seems like a pittance. BUT, I'm so fired up that I finish a 65 page novella the next week! Shawne is struck by cosmic inspiration and devises a genius structure for her next novel, while Helen revises, revises and does creative strategizing for her writing-related business.

In the evening we cook (salmon, pasta, veggie curry) and read the Tarot for each other. We don't take it seriously, but I do love my new Breugel deck! Check 'em out here, they're absolutely stunning! One of us may meet a new business partner, someone else should not get overly impressed by her boss. And hey, my "outcome" card was the sun, which made me happy (sun card= vitality, success, positivity)

Incredibly blurry but kinda cute photo of us!

I'm already looking forward to our July retreat by a beach in New England. In the meantime, I'm refreshed and on fire.

For a view of my messy writing space read Nutschell's Wednesday Writers' Space post! Also, I guest posted on Beth's 52 Blog about my thoughts on Show Don't Tell (Or as I put it, Evoke, Don't Bludgeon) . But first, don't forget to leave a comment! How do YOU renew your writing passion? Any great tips?

What Does Your Writing Space Look Like?

A writer spends many hours in his or her den, office, cubicle, studio, or as I affectionately call mine—the rabbit hole. So, the way that the space is arranged is an important aspect of being able to settle in. Are you someone who needs a window, streaming with morning light, or do you prefer a dark, cave? Do you like music when you write? Do you use a boombox, an analog record player, or do you listen on your earbuds to the cache on your iPhone? What’s your playlist for your WIP? Right now mine is Velvet Revolver and anything metal or spooky.

I love to write outside in the summer. Witness my sandaled foot, perched on the wooden table at the Cape retreat.

On the table are essentials: coffee and my iPhone. In another photo, see my view on the wraparound porch. Then, there’s a pic of one of my writing cohorts, Maggie, who shares the side porch with me. It’s a rare person I can actually share space with when I write. This attests to how comfortable I feel around her.

Oh, and there’s my lovely retreat hostess, Helen, in her monkey PJs. You see, part of the writing process involves lounging on a morning porch in kiddie PJs and drinking about five cups of coffee, while we rant and rave about our stubborn characters,

our meandering plots, and all of the things that intervene in the writing process—kids, jobs, um… life?

I also have a photo here of my home studio in NYC (Above).

The array of stuff that I have on the wall facing my desk seems random, but it's very planned out. This is where I post pics of my characters, so I can “talk to them” when I write. I also have pics of my writing mentors—Dale Peck and Steven Wright, to name two. They were teachers of mine in my MFA program, and I still hear their voices, encouraging or demanding more.

What does your writing space look like? Do you like the Spartan or the pack rat approach? Do you post lots of photos of your characters and settings like I do? Or is most everything filed in your head? Do you put up the occasional inspirational saying? My latest favorite is from author Franny Billingsley: “A book is like an elegant and efficient machine. Each cog needs to turn something else and, if it doesn't, it should be taken out.” And what’s your writing playlist? Dish here.

Summer Writing Retreats!

It’s that time again for the writing retreat I attend. I look forward to it for months. And I’m willing to endure crawling highway traffic and power outages for it. We have coffee on the porch in the morning while we talk shop. Then we go to our “writing stations”, at various spots on the wraparound porch. We work pretty much through the afternoon, with a quick lunch break. And then, when we're hot, tired and our brains are on overload, we trek through the woods to the beach. We take turns cooking dinner, and play writing games at night. Not a bad life for a week.

I’ve attended an assortment of writing workshops, conferences and retreats over the years. There are ones where you mostly workshop, and spend lots of time reading other authors’ work and critiquing. This is great when you're jumping in for the first time, and really want feedback on your work. There are conferences, where you listen to seasoned writers talk about their novels and how to best negotiate the writing life. This type of event is perfect when what you want is a shot of inspiration and information. And there are many permutations of the above. Summer retreats are also a chance to spend time in a deluxe location—Lake Tahoe, Southampton, Big Sur, Mendocino—you get the drift.

There are so, so many to choose from! You’ll discover this when you Google retreats. And they occur throughout the year. If you’re considering one, find out who the presenting writers are, and whether they’re a good fit for what you’re working on. You may prefer a smallish one, or perhaps a huge one, like the LA SCBWI summer conference, where you can blend in and pick and choose which breakout groups to attend. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a spa and two swimming pools out there.

So, Happy, Happy July Fourth! Have you ever attended a writing retreat? How was it? If not, what kind of retreat or conference would you look for? How are you celebrating the holiday? Getting any writing done?

Highlights from a Writers' Conference

On June 3rd, 4th and 5th I led a workshop in at the Philadelphia Writers' Conference in Writing Fiction for Kids and Teens. I’m used to teaching 2 or 3-hour classes, so I wasn’t sure how much I could impart to students in hour-long segments. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I can, indeed, squeeze a lot in! Handouts worked well, board charts were effective, and I made sure to have lots of interaction with my students, who contributed unique ideas and questions.

I loved my attendees’ enthusiasm and intelligence. Most people had already written at least part of a manuscript and were savvy about the requirements of their genre. Many in the group rose valiantly to my challenge of writing the dreaded 2-line elevator pitch. They are writing all kinds of cool stuff: space operas, high fantasy and snappy realistic YA to name just a few. The thoughtful Kerry Gans blogged about her experience here.

I sat in on Kelly Simmon’s last class on Plot. Kelly is a popular writer of suspenseful fiction. She drew a chart depicting the various kinds of writers: dreamer, outliner, driven worker bee, and what I call “pantser.” I agree with her feeling that most writers should "dream" more before they begin the writing process. That means not only conceptualizing your story and the characters that will inhabit it, but it also means doing many free-writes and prewriting. Free-writing from the antagonist’s POV as well.

Marie Lamba, an expert in publicizing her books, lectured on Marketing. And the agent panel did not disappoint. Agent Stacia Decker, from Donald Maass Literary spoke of her love for suspense and crime fiction. Stacia reps one of my absolute fave writers, Cherie Priest. Frances Collin and her co-agent, Sarah Yake, who rep a wide range of fiction, shared their thoughts on the digital revolution and ePubbing. One believes that the age of paper books is almost over, while the other (ironically the younger of the two) believes that both will be around for many years.

Gregory Frost, fantasy author of Shadowbridge led a 3-segment class on Character. I squeaked into the last class, where he had the whole room laughing about a fictitious character they created en masse. The fictitious man was a single firefighter, and lapsed Catholic who played bagpipes and sported a flame tattoo. Woo boy, lookout! I particularly appreciated Gregory’s insightful take on the literary potency of the symbolic self versus the real self. In other words, the “gap” in self-perception that could make a basically moral man rationalize his crime such as murder. The vast gulf between how one sees oneself and one’s actual actions in the world can be huge, and ripe material for fiction.

Eileen D’Angelo, Carol Sabik-Jaffe, Catherine DePino and Don Lafferty did a great job of organizing the conference, and making people feel welcome. If I forgot anyone, I thank you too. Eileen and I can be seen in the above photo. Hey, what do you want for a low-light scene shot with an iPhone 4? I had to run out before I could get more photos, and I confess, I missed the keynote speaker Solomon Jones, though I heard he was rousing. My excuse was that my brother’s rock band was playing that night up in Bluebell. It’s awesome that he put together a bunch of musicians who happen to be high-level accountants! Who knew accountants could rock out? Anyway, my brother John’s drumming was great, and the pulled pork and baked beans were tasty.

All-in-all, I had a wonderful time at the PWC meeting people, and talking shop with fellow teachers and students. If you’re a writer near the Philly area, do consider going. If you’re not, I recommend attending another writing conference. It helps motivate, inspire and build your writing community. Have you attended a writing conference or retreat? What was your favorite one so far, and what was the most valuable thing you learned from it?

Nowhere Else to Go--more thoughts on Retreats

I'm in the Internet coffee place by the beach where so many vacationers are checking their email that it's shuddering in and out. The luckier folks have iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Droids and plain old PDFs so that they can check their email without slogging to the coffee joint. Or are they luckier?

The genius of this writing retreat is that there's nowhere to go when you want to dither, consternate, digress or just plain avoid your manuscript. And traveling to the avatar world of twitter, facebook, Huffpo, even this wonderful blogspot, is definitely going "somewhere else."

(Look, I've gotta post once week or so. Uh, yah!)

Come to think of it, I feel less obsessive, not being able to tweet every day. Even though the big black flies are biting my ankles and the seat of the rocking chair is hard, and the pacing and sighing and chuckling of my fellow writers is slightly distracting, the fact is, I've gotten a lot done. A 286 page revise finished and four pages of a new project.

I'm reminded of the artist whose wife used to lock up in a room, so he had nothing else to do but paint masterpieces (or rip his hair out in chunks).

We're not always producing masterpieces, but this retreat offers us the time to try!