Anyone been to a writing retreat?

[theferry]

My work is offering writing retreats over the summer. A mix of online (1 day) on campus (2 days) and residential (in a lovely country house for 3 days). All costs covered. Has anyone done this? How are they run? Have they been helpful? Any drawbacks? Thank you!

I find writing easy so whole idea is "Does Not Compute" for me. Still, nice food, someone else does the cooking, change of scene. What's not to like? As long as the wifi is good... do they provide dock stations? I hate writing on laptops.

I love a writing retreat as long as it is a “time to write” one not a “take classes” one. It’s really helpful to let go of domestic tasks and day to day life stuff and just WRITE on your own schedule, with walks right outside your door, and food made. You can write late into the night or in bursts or as you see fit, be fuelled, and not be half thinking about emptying the dishwasher or is it bin day.

Ive done one where a host catered and cleared up all meals, others where frozen homemade meals were provided (like Cook) so it was as little work as possible, but there was also a stocked kitchen if your writing process involve procrastibaking or you liked to stop in the evening to cook and process the day. Both were self-led in terms of how, why and when to write.

Haven't been on one as you describe (though it sounds great). I have been on an Arvon week which is slightly different in that you have classes, plus some time for your own writing also.

Arvon also has a “just writing” option! That was the frozen meals and procrastibaking one. My room had a bat in it, it was great.

OP, where do you work? I would LOVE to be employed by a company that offers this as a perk!

My colleagues and I usually arrange one for ourselves each year and it's brilliant. We choose a nice house in a nice location (by the sea is my favorite) and then figure out who we want to invite - having people you like and who genuinely want to write rather than piss around is crucial!

Thanks for the responses. Sometimes I get on OK with writing, other days can be such hard going. I sometimes find it an isolating and lonely experience. The DCs coming home from school at 4pm interrupts my focus and I rarely get much done past that time. I think I’ll give the retreat a go.

@BestestBrownies this is entirely new for my work. It’s been a terrible university to work for but we’ve just been through a restructuring and it gives me a bit of hope that we may get a more supportive environment in the future.

I organised a writing retreat for my lab, mainly because we had ££ left at the end of a grant to spend.

we had - nice country house, good meals, laptops to write.

we had one writing room where everyone met with laptops in the morning. we'd go around the table with each person saying what their goals are for the day.

then people could write in the shared room or in the garden.

the valuable bit is that if you feel everyone else is working, it motivates you to work and not do social media / emails / general junk.

it was fun for our group and at least some writing got done.

Thanks @parietal

my only potential problem is I generally need lots of books/research with me to write (I’m in the Humanities) . I’ve got material for a journal article that has been sitting around since 2015. That might be the best thing to work on as I’d only need the 2 lever arch files of research.

I'd love it if my dept did this. A friend (in a science discipline - I'm in humanities) did it last summer with friends and said it was brilliant for finally breaking the back on a paper she'd been procrastinating on.

The only downside I can see is - why three locations? That sounds a bit disruptive to be split across online/campus/house over a week and would potential limit really getting into the flow of things. And, personally, I'm already away at various conferences over the summer so being absent from family life for an additional week would go down like a bag of cold sick with DH, who already does the lion's share of the domestics/ parenting.

Sounds incredible, I'd be on the country house one!

I did a two day in person retreat. As others have said, it was mostly useful for parking everything else. I'd do it again.

@Flockameanie they’re separate retreats spread over a month. So not necessarily intended to be all done together.

I'd bite the hand off an institutional offer of something like this. Imagine - no washing up, no cooking, no bed making etc etc etc. Just writing in the company of others to keep me honest.

I like writing once I get going, but it's haaaaard.

Unless you're going on foot, just take whatever books, papers, etc you need. I went on one a few years ago and lugged a suitcase full of papers. It was very heavy, but totally worth it. I could spread them all over my room and really get into them. Writing retreats are bliss!