Writing Retreats: Five ways to make them worth it

Panoramic of a waterfall on the drive into town

I recently had the opportunity to go to a writing retreat with my friends, Jill and Mary, and while there were definitely ulterior motives to the trip (in that the main point was to spend time with two of my favorite people and catch up), I still wanted to make the trip "worth it" in the writing sense.

Writing retreats are an excellent way to reconnect with your creativity, boost your word count a little (or A LOT), and spend time with like minded creatives. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on the retreat, going to new places, etc. My retreat took place at my friend's house with her gaggle of kids running underfoot because circumstances necessitated it. I think that between food for five days and gas money I spent less than 100$. Budget friendly retreats are absolutley possible.

Still, I was spending time away from my family AND work and I knew that the writing would be slim because we'd be chatting and having big life realizations, as often is the case. That didn't mean that we didn't take advantage of every minute we could to write our little hearts out. I'm going to go over five things that we did to maximize our time that made this retreat worth it, even though I didn't get thousands of words written.

Set your Expectations

I knew going in to this weekend that I wanted to spend time with my friends more than I wanted to get those words in. While the words were in there somewhere, they really came probably fourth down on the priority list. #2 was making and eating yummy food (something we all collectively excel at), and #3 was simply to feel inspired. With my low expectation for actually getting words in, I was pleasantly surprised at what I was able to accomplish.

Said yummy food: coconut custard with a mango compote and meringue cookies

Make a Goal

None of us really started this weekend having a goal to speak of. After some deliberation (that probably took longer than it needed to), I decided I wanted to leave the retreat with a new short story written and a novella outlined (Did you see the coming soon page with Farro and Lonin? Yeah, that story). And I did actually accomplish this with days to spare, which was fantastic because it left plenty of time to find inspiration elsewhere.

What's great is that I did, in fact, reach both goals. At the last minute we decided to try to submit to a writing competition. We feverishly wrote through a short story in a day and a half; writen, edited, and proofread. I was very close to being able to submit, but was seconds too late. Which is fine becuase I forgot key details of the prompt and it would have disqualified me immediately. But I revised because the end was a little wonky, and now I have a little story in my back pocket for a rainy day. And, as you can see, I did finish the novella outline and am currently drafting it, so WIN!

Create Inspirational Circumstances (This section will be the longest. Bare with me.)

Yeah, writing retreats are for the writing, but that doesn't mean that that's all you have to do. I'll give you an example. The town we stayed in was absolutely ideal. Its a little fishing town on the edge of Alaska surrounded by mountains and trees. It's drizzly most of the year and the kind of place where you can walk everywhere and send your kids around to places and not worry about them. That last tidbit isn't particularly important, but as a mother of 4, that is what I look for in a place to live.

In short, it was the perfect place for vibes.

As my friend and I were driving in, we both looked at a tunnel and said that it would be the perfect setting for a- cue simultaneous statements of "romance" and "horror." We chuckled and it became a running joke between the three of us (the third was currently at her house awaiting out momenous arrival). It also became the basis of our entire weekend.

This idea developed into what we called a "vibes tour." My friend who lived there became responsible for choosing different land features in the town and left it up to the rest of us to decide what genre she had in mind when she chose it. We spent time on the dock, traveled a very very short distance to a river (where Jill was desperately hoping to see a dead body and validate her horror vibes), scribbled notes in our notebooks about the iceberg lake with glacial runoff, and even visited a historical cemetery. This place could have gone either horror or historical fiction. The latter for the obvious, however, the cemetery was originally placed too close to the ocean and when the tide came in, caskets would rise out of the ground, and I think that has a sufficient ick factor.

Wood carving at the dock

Glacier Lake

Consume stories

While this was fun, we also took time to watch a goofy movie (Legend with Tom Cruise with literally no pants on, anybody?). It's become tradition that we often watch ridiculous fantasy movies and make fun of them the whole time. This time, however, I left with a surprising amount of romantic inspiration for a potentially new series of novels set on Valra with very dominating partner vibes. Nothing concrete yet though.

Sit with your thoughts

The last and final way that I really enjoyed spending my time was simply in silence. I don't often get the opportunity to do nothing with nothing to worry about. At work, I'm working (obvi.) but I also do school online, and when I'm home I'm homing. There's always something on my mind. I decided that I'd have everything settled before I left home though, so work was done, school assignments were taken care of, and for me, there wasn't a child I was responsible for in sight.

In addition, I wanted to keep my social media stuff to a minimum (though it did sneak in there a little bit) to sufficiently turn my brain from overstimulated to perfectly neutral. The perfectly primed space for inspiration to settle. I went on walks alone, and we went on a hike. I even went to church for the first time in several years, which was its own bit of weird inspiration. I'm telling you, inspiration can come from anywhere. It was quite delightful to not have to think about anything too crucial for a few days and it left me feeling like I could conquer the pile of drafts I'm working through.

In conclusion, writing retreats are an awesome way to get some inspiration for your own creative endeavors. Have you ever been on a writing retreat? Would you want to go? What activities would you want to do? I'd love to know!