Retreating to Advance

By Cathy Perkins

The weekend marked the 10^th anniversary of our writing retreat. Wow, ten years. Ten years ago, Rachel Grant, Rebecca Clark, Courtney Milan, Darcy Burke and I were Golden Heart finalists and staged our first retreat. (We invited Elisabeth Naughton to join us several years ago and Kris Kennedy couldn’t come this year.) We’re all multi-published authors now, but we’re also friends. We’ve seen each other’s children grow up, celebrated successes and consoled losses.

The primary focus of the weekend is writing. Usually silence reigns except for the clicking of Elisabeth’s keys, but there are lighter moments too. We reviewed the 432 pictures from Darcy’s photo shoot and picked favorites for book cover potential. Of course, we had to stage our own “shoot.” 

This is our “thoughtful” pose. 

Yeah, not.

One of the most helpful things for me was the business discussion. We talked about goals for the upcoming year and mouths gaped as Darcy described her publication schedule. “I treat it like a job, because that’s what it is,” she explained. In order to meet her schedule, she sets—and meets—daily word counts. 

Her comment echoed Steven King. I listened to On Writing during the drive to Portland. (We change the location every year, but the house is always in the Pacific Northwest.) King said he goes to his writing space every morning and doesn’t come out until he has at least 1500 words on the page. Some days he’s done by noon. Others, he’s there until dinner time.

That’s my takeaway from this year’s retreat. Consistency. Discipline. Sure, I wrote nearly 15,000 words this weekend. Some of them will turn out to be lousy, but the first draft of my latest novel is nearly complete and editing will deal with the clunky sections. But every day since I’ve been home, instead of checking email, social media, and the news when I get up, I write. I’m roughly two scenes away from reaching “The End.”

And then the editing will begin…and the plotting of the next book.

Thanks Darcy. And Steven.   

What about you? Writing retreats? Daily habits? What gets that enormous challenge you're facing done? 

In other news, I'm pretty excited about the cover for the next novel in the Holly Price series.
IN IT FOR THE MONEY releases later this spring. And if I can keep the discipline going, there will be new adventures for Holly and her half-sister, Keri. (Hah, you didn't know about her, did you?)

An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd. 

Visit her at http://cperkinswrites.com

She's hard at work on the next book in the Holly Price series and a new series set in the Cascade mountains.

Retreating

What is it about a writing retreat that makes us so productive?

Is it the creative energy in the house? 
Knowing other people are writing away (and you should be too)? 
Or is it because you left behind ____ (fill in your own blank) and you better make use of the time?

So what is a writing retreat? Basically, you go…away and write. 

A retreat can be an organized event someone else arranges, an off-season rental house with friends, or an inexpensive hotel room where you hole up and stash energy bars in your computer case.

A writing retreat isn’t everyone’s idea of fun. When my friends ask what I did while I was away for the weekend, I shrug and say, “I wrote.”

They’re mystified. They can’t fathom why I leave home to do that, when I have an office and a computer in my own house. Then again they also don’t have any idea that, when I say, “I wrote,” I mean I wrote eight plus hours a day. I wrote over 12,000 words on a new story. (Of course, they also can’t understand why I’d want to spend eight hours a day writing.)

But the point is, I can’t be that focused at home.

Unlike a writing conference, which can be wonderful in a different way, the point of a writing retreat isn’t classes or meeting editors and agents. Although, the group I go away with has shared marketing ideas and…maybe I should back up a bit.

Way back in 2008, a group of women from the Pacific Northwest finalled in the Golden Heart—and formed a bond based first on writing and then on friendship. Every year since then, we’re gotten together over the long Martin Luther King weekend for a writing retreat. While there’s tons of writing, there’s also laughter and stories, Courtney Milan’s lessons on branding, Rebecca Clark’s yoga sessions and Rachel Grant’s chocolate martinis.

I’m halfway through a new story, with most of the remaining scenes blocked out. I haven’t a clue about the title or cover. Hmm… wonder what the women are doing this weekend?

Have you ever been on a writing retreat? What do you think is the best part?