The idea of a writing retreat always sounds so romantic to me. I imagine tortured souls drifting over the hillsides or along sea-pounded cliffs searching for the right words to elucidate their story.
There can certainly be an element of this, depending on where the retreat is situated. Several years ago, I attended a writing course with Arvon. They have a number of rural centres, all based in beautiful old houses surrounded by fields and woodland where one can walk, or indeed work, if one chooses.
I stayed for a week at Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire which once belonged to the poet Ted Hughes. There is something about knowing of the creative thought that must exist in the bones of that house that spurs one on to succeed.
I took another course in January of this year in central London in the offices of the publisher Faber: this time it was memoir witing. I wrote about it in my essay, “Oh to be a writer” which you can find it in the Home Truths archive. Of the many things I took away from that course, the best one was a writing buddy.
Harry was the first person I spoke to when I arrived on the first day. She seemed sunny and cheerful, and I liked her immediately. As the week progressed, she proved herself to be extremely insightful and empathetic when we were each discussing our work with the group. She and I bonded, too, on getting a little grumpy when people wanted to waste time with chit-chat. We both thought, “Look, I haven’t spent all this money to make small talk. I want to learn, and to write”
Harry turned out to be a published author of several successful cookbooks and I explained to her my past as a journalist and editor: our shared writing careers gave us a kinship, and explained her aim, like mine, to get on with the matter in hand. We were both in new territory with memoir writing and wanted to make the most of the week with our tutor, Catherine Cho, literary agent and author of “Inferno: a memoir of motherhood and madness”.
On the last day of the course, we all exchanged emails and agreed it would be good to continue to meet up every couple of months to read our work to each other and critique it. We have succeeded in doing that, although some people have fallen away, perhaps because the time is not right for them, and others cannot often make it because of work or family commitments, but we keep going and our next meeting is in October. However, I wanted more than that. I needed more regular contact with someone who was on the same journey as me. In short, I needed a writing buddy.
After lots of farewells and a group photo, we were all milling around on the pavement outside the course offices in Bloomsbury, when I asked Harry if she would find it useful to have someone to partner her in her quest to get her book finished, as I certainly wanted some support and companionship while writing mine. I worried she might find this suggestion a little intrusive, given that we had only met five days before. I needn’t have.
We have been working together ever since. Writing is a lonely business and I find it’s good for morale to have someone else who has the same aim and aspirations. It’s also great to have someone to call me to account. Without an imposed deadline, I can find all sorts of excuses not to write. When there is a commitment to someone else, I feel far too guilty if I don’t keep my agreement.
Thus, we send each other around 2,000 words every week, on a Wednesday, hence: “Wednesday Words”. Some weeks, one or other of us gets caught up in everyday life and the “Wednesday Words” don’t arrive until Friday or Saturday but, as we both know more words will need to be forthcoming within a few days, it’s a good incentive to stick to our arrangement.
We edit and critique each other’s work, offering suggestions for what could make it better. This requires trust and respect for each other which we always exercise but it also requires honesty and resisting the temptation to feel irked if either of us says what the other has done is not working.
Our regular contact, respect for each other’s work and meeting up occasionally has built a friendship over the months we have been working together. A few weeks ago, Harry emailed me with a proposition:
“We (she and her husband Jay) have a beach house in Cornwall and I am planning to work there for most of September. Would you like to join me for a few days for a writing retreat?”
Who would say no to that invitation? Not me!
“Yes please! It sounds a great idea. It would be lovely to spend some time with you and especially if we are going to commit to getting our heads down and really progressing our writing”
I have just come back. It was fabulous. Not least because it was just lovely to have a change of scenery for a few days but because Harry also invited Vanita, another of our writing group who we have got to know over the past few months.
We both like her immensely and she is a great writer. That is not her profession: she is an entrepreneur, CEO of an extremely successful business she built from scratch and holder of an MBE. Multi-talented is, I think, the phrase to best describe her. The three of us had a great time together staying for three days in Harry’s lovely Scandi-built lodge, 15 minute’s walk from the beach.
We were very disciplined, and wrote for three hours every day between 10am and 1pm: the goal was 2,000 words a day. We stopped for lunch and then each read out our work so the others could critique it. In the afternoon we walked to the beach, had a bit of quiet time or in Harry’s case went for a run or a swim. She had just been surfing when she came to do the pick-up from the train.
Once six o’clock came, it was time for a G&T and even, on one evening, a soak in the hot tub! Then dinner out at the local café or restaurant. The big bonus about spending time with a food writer and exemplary cook is that she will never take you to a duff eatery and she can knock up an impressive, tasty lunch from whatever she finds in the fridge. We ate well.
I think it’s fair to say, we have each come way from our break with renewed confidence and enthusiasm. We also each have new thoughts and ideas for the structure of our books and other elements that could improve them.
Vanita is going to join us as a third writing buddy and benefit from the routine of sending words off to us each week and the support we can offer her to get the job done. She will do the same for us. Our deadlines for finishing are looming. We are each giving ourselves from now until spring to finish our first drafts and then it will be time to work on the second draft and start to talk to agents and publishers. Wish us luck!
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You’re reading Home Truths, a newsletter from me, Susy Smith. I am many things: a parent of grown-up kids, a dog owner, a gardener and a compulsive mover of vases (I worked for years as a stylist). I am also a writer/editor and former Editor-in-Chief of British Country Living Magazine.
I write here on an eclectic mix of subjects about life, and a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Your writers retreat sounded absolutely idyllic!! A real treat.
It was Debbie. Very inspiring to work somewhere new and not have the distractions that home life brings!