When your writing needs a Retreat...Part 1

The last few days, I've been on retreat - writing retreat.

A couple of ex-Cloudie friends, Moira (aka Maddie Please - The Summer of Second Chances; Come Away with me; A Year of New Adventures; The Mini Break) and Jane, set up A Place to Write some years ago, organising writing days and retreats. I decided last year to book into their Spring Writing Retreat in wonderful Weobley, partly because Mr Squidge is going off on a boys week later this year (windsurfing in Greece, Coronavirus permitting) and I thought if he can go away for a week, then so can I.

It has been totally worth it.

I drove down to Weobley on the Tuesday morning. Apart from half an hour spent in stationary traffic on the M42 because of an accident, and one wrong turn where the A44 morphs into another minor A road without any obvious signage, it was a good run. The flooding near Worcester was a sight to behold; muddy brown water, stretching as far as the eye could see on either side of the road. Although I've seen flooding around the Soar at home, this was a whole different level of flooding to what I'm used to.

Jane and Moira made me feel most welcome when I arrived, and I met Kirsten and Isabel, my lovely fellow retreatees. (Is that a word? If not, it is now!)

The Throne, where we were staying, is a magnificent sprawling 15th century house, and - when the heating was working (it wasn't on Monday night, apparently, so all the stoves were lit on Tuesday morning until the lovely Richard came to sort the heating out) it was the toastiest 400-year old house I've ever stayed in.

The Throne

Moira took me up the (first) wobbly staircase to my room - I knew it was mine because look what was on the door;

In fact, every retreatee who'd been published had their book cover on their bedroom door...and those that hadn't been published - yet - had made-up ones.

And my room itself? Well, take a look at this:

Glorious, isn't it? I could only climb into bed from one side though, because the floor sloped and one side had to be propped up on blocks to keep the bed level.

We don't think it's the EXACT bed that King Charles I slept in, but apparently he stayed a night in the house after the Battle of Naseby...

Then it was a quick tour of the rest of the house. I haven't got photos of everything that caught my attention, but here's a flavour...

The door to a bedroom...

And the bedroom itself

The modern kitchen extension against one of the
older parts of the house

The mantelpiece was as tall as me

Just one of the cosy writing nooks...

Beautiful bedroom beams

A lot of bare ceiling and cobwebs over the
bathroom 'pods'!

And some of the unplastered wattle inside the house.

I missed out the Goldilocks room (three metal-framed single beds in a shared room) and the rooms where folk were already in and unpacked...and the graffiti cut into a beam in the entrance hall.

Then it was back through my room, down the second staircase, and into the kitchen again. Yes, I did say second staircase, and yes, I did say through my room; I had two doors! I decided the edges of some of the stairs on this staircase had been nibbled by giant mice, they were so wibbly... 

After lunch - homemade spicy soup, delish - we all wandered off to various nooks to set up and get writing. Here's where I based myself.

The entrance hall

I remember reading somewhere that yellow is an energetic colour, good for creativity, and it certainly seemed to work; by the time we ate dinner that first evening, I had 2K words down on Tilda 4. Because let's face it - I was on a writing retreat - I needed to get some writing done! I decided to focus on bashing out new ideas rather than edit Tilda 3, and it was so good to be able to do that, knowing I'd be fed, watered, and very comfortable for the next few days.

The sun painting pictures on the other side of my nook

Wednesday morning, I got up much earlier than I would have done at home because a heavy vehicle passed by at 5am, so I only dozed thereafter. A few more hundred words after breakfast but before the workshop, and then the 'Day Girls' (some of the members of Jane's writing group) arrived and we cracked on. Here we all are, ready to work hard round the dining table...

L to R; Ann, Gill, Kirsten, Sue, Isabel, Jane, Moira

The workshops were run by the very lovely Isabel Costello (Paris Mon Amour, and The Literary Sofa blog), and focused on Inspiration in the first, and Motivation and Resilience in the second. I'm going to blog separately about the workshops in Parts 2 & 3 of Weobley, because I need time to digest and think about what I got from them before I share them with you. Suffice to say at this point that they were thought-provoking, fun, and very, very useful.

After lunch, it was free writing time again. I set up this time in the beautiful contemporary kitchen, and managed another thousand or so words before dinner.

And that was the pattern for the following day, too. Wake early, breakfast, writing, workshop, lunch, writing (and a quick walk around Weobley, taking in all the history and black-and-white-buildings. There might even be a blog post all about gravestones, because I found some gorgeous and surprising ones in the churchyard), dinner and conversation before early to bed.

It was such a luxury to be catered for. Jane and Moira shared the cooking between them, and in addition to the lovely homemade soup on the first day, we were treated to homemade cakes, quiche, curry, fish pie, and Chinese. We were plied with wine too - but only once the writing had been done. Who was it who said 'write drunk, edit sober'? Afraid that doesn't work for me, personally... The kettle was always on, and if you got peckish in between meals you could always help yourself to fruit from the bowl, or suck on a mint. I can't thank them both enough.

It was a brilliantly productive, relaxed, inspiring time.

Did I really need a retreat to get my writing done? I know I'm perfectly capable of writing without, but now, having done it, I think I did need it. My writing time is often fitted around other things and/or other people... For two and a half days, I could allow myself to focus on writing and pretty much nothing else. And I got a lot done in that time. Bearing in mind that two mornings were spent in workshops, I still managed to get 5K words down before I came home. I'd never have got that far in my normal weekly routine.

The retreat's not just about writing though...it's the conversation around the dinner table. Granted, a lot of the time it was about writing, but about experiences in the world of writing more than what we were writing about. We chatted about families, about ourselves, about the things we like to do outside of writing, about Coronavirus (can't avoid the blessed subject at the moment) and memories related to food - particularly after the Wednesday evening raspberry trifles...

In fact, d'you know what the last few days reminded me of? The best of the Word Cloud. Those days when we came together in one community as writers of all levels and experiences - chatting on the home page, sharing news of progress made and setbacks suffered, having a go at writing short pieces like we used to in the monthly comps... Yes. It was like a mini-Cloud experience.

Writing's such a lonely thing to do, most of the time, maybe I needed that support and encouragement, that time with like-minded people, to refresh both myself and my writing spirit.

Let's hope I can hang onto the positive vibes and continue to make good progress as the normal routine of life begins to make itself felt again.

(Huge thanks to my fellow retreatees and to the Day Girls for making it such a positive experience.)