Thursday 1st December
Hell, it’s my last day and I haven’t done anywhere near as much as I planned. Get up at crack of dawn. Open laptop. Write and write and write. Finish Chapter Three. Edit late chapters. End with total word count of 7,000 words. But more importantly, feel that my novel has legs. Am beginning to fall in love with the characters and story. Think I will carry on with this when I get home, which is one of the things I wanted to establish. One of the reasons I came away.
Things I learned
If you can possibly bear it, don’t have internet access. (wish I hadn’t succumbed)
Writing first pages (stream of consciousness writing) in the morning does work. (will continue to do this)
Don’t take anything else to do. It’s just another excuse to get distracted. (wish I hadn’t taken competitions)
Don’t think you have loads of time. If you usually work to deadlines – as I do – then set some. Interesting how on the last morning I wrote loads.
Take chocolate. (you might think you won’t want any – but you will and it’ll save a lot of time going out to get it 😉 )
Would I do it again? Definitely!
You needn’t have told me about the chocolate as there’s no way I’d think I wouldn’t want to eat any!
I did a writing retreat in Switzerland a few years ago (to the world I was actually going to to look after a friend’s apartment and cats in a fairly ‘out in sticks’ village) Bloomin’ brilliant! – 3 stories written, 2 were accepted and flights and chocolate paid for twice over. “Great, dead easy – do it again,” I thought. The following year I went back but by now I’d reconnected with old friends out there so: nul story points, zilcho stories, oops. Headed for Scotland to an area where I knew nobody at all this year in September. Lost a LOT of weight walking up and down the hills and along the loch … but nul points on the story front. It was a Retreat then, as in re-treat myself to a lovely break, but no retreat as in writing retreat. You can’t have it all ways, Della, but that Swiss chocolate beats bloomin’ haggis any day of the week
Really enjoyed reading about the retreat – sounds a fantastic opportunity to really focus on writing!
It all sounds like bliss to me!
who mentioned chocolate!