Post-retreat report #2

I've been home 4 days now and it's been an unusual return. First, it's been hotter than a sweat lodge since I got back, after months of cool, rainy weather. All of us are lethargic and cranky with this sudden change. Second, I got a new kitten on Tuesday, Franny, and she's little and cute and time-consuming (for more info, see http://www.sobertruths.blogspot.com/). Third, my computer picked up a virus Thursday afternoon and is at the repair shop (my fingers are crossed that it can be fixed). Add to this two groups, three coaching appointments, some new client inquiries, three small but immediate jobs and one big project for a client, and it's been a busy time.

But I'm committed to staying with my story so the after a short night with Jessie on Wednesday morning at 4, I settled in and wrote another chapter. That went so well that yesterday, I sat down at 5 to do the same thing. Didn't happen. I punched out a few lackluster paragraphs but there was little juice in them. I felt stymied. What made the difference?

Here it is: On Monday driving back, my friend Tamara and I drove in silence for more than 2 hours. I had time to think about the next chapter and what might happen. But the rest of the day Wednesday, I didn't get--nor did I take--any time to think about where the story might go, what might happen next, to run through all the possibilities and pick one to write.

And I'm seeing that that part of the retreat, the hours of silence to walk and lie in the hammock and stare at the garden, where I was able to keep the story living within me, will be hard to come by, much harder than the writing time. Something I'm going to have to sort out.

Starting the new writing practice

After five mornings of writing first thing, then writing all morning, I wrote in my journal the last two mornings. But today, due to the advent yesterday of Franny, a new kitten, I was up at 4:30 with little hope of going back to sleep. When Franny's up, she wants everybody up and that means refereeing with the two older cats who aren't thrilled that little Franny has come to join us.

I futzed for a few minutes, then realized I had nearly two hours until my gym buddy and I were headed out. So I did my best to recreate the retreat experience. Put my laptop on the dining table with a view out to the terrace, which got cleaned yesterday, made a cup of tea, fed the cats, and sat down and write a chapter. The storyline had been percolating in my head all day yesterday. I wasn't exactly sure where it was going but I had a good idea and sure enough it just flowed on to the page. I liked staying in the story during the day, thinking about it in off-moments, and knowing I'd be working with the characters again.

I wrote very steadily until just past 7, got dressed, and went to the gym. Being up that long, I felt much more alert for the gym, and having already been creative for two hours was a huge boost to the day although I have to admit I felt very sleepy about 4 pm and again now. I won't be going to bed late tonight. And I hope to write again tomorrow.

Home from retreat, well satisfied

I arrived home about 12:30 today from the writing retreat. I had planned to put in a couple of hours very early this morning, an effort to keep the early morning writing going, but I slept poorly and had too many little things to do to get ready to leave at 7:30. I gave a ride to one of the other women and we agreed to keep silence a while and so it was nearly 11 before we started any conversation. That gave me a few more hours to ponder my characters and where they are going.

Over the last five days (Wed-Sun), I wrote 12,000 words. That's a lot and I felt really good about most of it. It needs editing, it needs tweaking, some of it even needs rethinking but I broke my stuck place around figuring out what might happen and that felt really good. And some surprises showed up and that felt really good.

My challenge now will be keeping up the momentum, to keep in the front of mind and calendar, that I am a writer for myself, not an editor for authors. The retreat lets me live fully into the first identity and let go of the second. My real life here at home is the reverse. So it will be interesting to see if I can get up and write first thing tomorrow and how that might play out.

End-of-retreat blues

I woke this morning out of sorts. I hadn't slept well and yet hadn't wanted to get up. I couldn't find the thread of the next chapter to write for my novel, and the long list of things I wanted to do today--all of them quite fun and engaging--suddenly seemed stupid. The long drive home loomed up, the full work calendar I go back to, the laundry, the grocery shopping. I felt burdened.

It doesn't help that last night's glorious sunshine evaporated again or that it's cold enough to have the heat on this July 4. It doesn't help that I have written furiously and exceedingly well over the last four days, producing double the number of chapters I had hoped for and that my creative brain is tired, needs rest and replenishment. It doesn't help that nearby neighbors are setting off obnoxiously loud fireworks--I can only hope they didn't have too much money to spend.

I dragged myself out of bed at 7:30, made tea, sat down and wrote another chapter. That made me feel a little better. I didn't know where the ideas were going to come from but somehow just sitting down and reading the last few pages of yesterday's entry worked.

I got some breakfast, took a walk down to the meadow, surrounded by more mosquitoes than I could count, came back, and have spent the last two hours taking notes and thinking about where the story is going to go next. It has not been an easy two hours. Sometimes the ideas just flow out of me, and sometimes, like today, I have to extract them from the creative mire. But I have a good list to go home with, places to jump into in the early morning if I keep up this new routine or on the next Writing Fridays.

Because the story is still gripping me, the other things on my list (a watercolor of the beautiful garden scene out my window, the reading of a book on writing, a couple more collages, another long walk--they may all have to go by the wayside. I'm still overly ambitious, I know.

This kind of low place usually doesn't hit me until I've been home a few days. The post-Whidbey doldrums. Maybe I can have it today and escape it later.

Writing first thing

Today was my fourth day of writing first thing in the morning. The last three days weren't easy. I wanted so much to follow my familiar routine of brushing my teeth, making tea, checking email, writing in my journal. An easy, comfortable hour has been going that way each morning for many years.

Here instead, I've been getting up, brushing my teeth, making my bed and opening the blinds onto the lush early morning garden of lilies and robins, goldfinches and astralomeria. I get dressed, put on my slippers and go across the covered breezeway to the main kitchen. I put the kettle on, do some stretches, and make tea. Then I pad back across the breezeway to my room and turn on the computer.

Today for the first time, there was no resistance to wade through before the writing started. Today, I woke up early (just after 6), shook myself from an unpleasant dream, and starting thinking about Doug and Ellie, my characters, and what was going to happen next. I had a good idea for an upcoming chapter but I needed an interim piece and as I lay there and thought about it, it all came clear, so that by the time I had tea in hand, I was ready to go. And by noon, with an hour out for a brisk walk, I'd written 2500 words, about average for these four days.

There are too many variables for me to accurately guess the cause of my prolific writing this week. We're in silence most of the day so I can stay with my characters. I stay off email and there's no phone service. My day to cook was early in the week so I just show up for meals. In other words, I'm pretty well taken care of and can just focus on the writing.

I've also much less to distract me here. No household chores when the imagining falters or the characters won't behalf. I guess I could fold and refold the underwear in the drawer, but that seems pretty pointless.

Anyway, I did want to report that I've been in the writing waterfall for 4 days and it's been glorious.

Day 3 of the retreat

Yesterday, I didn't write in my journal first thing in the morning for the first time in more than a decade. (Well, there was one other day in 2002, the Sunday morning that my dad died). It felt odd not to have that meditative, wake-up journaling activity, but I had decided that for the next five mornings of the retreat, I would write on my novel first thing as Eric Maisel, my creativity mentor, and other writing coaches recommend.

I sat in resistance for about 10 minutes and then slowly I began to write. As I had resolved one of the logistical issues the day before, I had several avenues open to me. And I had also realized the day before that some of the chapter order was off and that too seemed to give me license to just plunge in out of order and write what I felt like. And then it began to flow and I worked steadily for 3 hours with a brief break for breakfast, then walked an hour, then came back and wrote another hour. In all, I drafted about 2,000 words. What's more, I felt reimmersed in my characters and their dilemmas, in the flow of thinking about them.

This morning I resolved to do it again. It was harder. I hadn't slept as well and didn't feel rested and rarin' to go as I did yesterday. I missed my journal routine, slow meditation and contemplation over tea, rather than this attempt to get my brain to solve problems and generate ideas. But I hung in there and after about a slow 20 minutes, I was writing again and did so until lunch.

And while I know that 5 days is not going to instill a new habit, I can begin to see how I might be able to do this at home, if I got up two hours before I went to the gym or to work. I could then have about 90 minutes to write, a long-enough time to get out a page.

Day 1 of the retreat

I'm loving being here on retreat and I'm having a hard time settling down to work on my book. I trust that that will come, an engagement in the story and in the writing process, but right now it's a lot more fun to lie on the outdoor sofa and look at the lush gardens in the crisp marine air that's the perfect temperature and snooze and read a little of Stephen King's book On Writing.

I did spend some time this afternoon reading through my five pages of notes, and I think I have solved the issue of the missing computer and how Hansen, the detective, is going to find it. I've got a number of ideas for chapters that I can get started on but all of them have a logistical issue like that that needs to be resolved. Not necessarily before I start writing on them but it would certainly help. Knowing now what the car and the anagramed registration name is a big step in the right direction.

Our day at the retreat is spent in silence (except for meals) and that prolonged quiet, whether I'm actually at the keyboard or not, is tremendously helpful because it gives me a chance to stay with my characters and my plot and let my not-quite-conscious brain keep working on the issue.

It's also clear to me how tired I am of being at the keyboard (I've been particularly busy at my paid work lately) and so it has been lovely to do some long journal entries and just cogitate.