With the fervour of someone with an n = 1 positive experience, I thought I’d write about what I learned from a recent writing retreat.
My University organises one-day events to encourage writing. They’re on-campus, in the neutral territory of the Library, so perhaps calling them “writing retreats” is a little far-fetched. Nonetheless, the idea is to provide a time and space for people to achieve some writing. They are run monthly, with some additional online events also geared towards promoting writing.
A colleague had recommended I go when I complained about not being able to find time to focus on a grant application that I needed to write. I figured it was worth a try.
On arrival, I found the room was large and easily accommodated ~15 attendees. There was a variety of seating and desks. The retreat had a structure:
Essentially it was 5 x 45 min writing blocks with time to stretch, do chair yoga, chat to other attendees etc. in between. We had a facilitator who talked us through each block and helped us to “park downhill” for the next block.
Many of the other attendees were in the same position: wanting to “break the back” of a piece of writing (paper, application etc.) that was looming over them. I got the impression that some attendees perhaps didn’t have a quiet space where they could work. I have a sole occupancy office and can usually work uninterrupted, however, I find that distractions usually derail an attempt to get some writing done.
I learned that there is research on the effectiveness of writing retreats. They are “a restorative space for kindness collegiality and pleasure” (Knowles and Grant, 2014) but can prompt “paradoxical feelings, experiencing conflicting emotions of joy and guilt” (Hammond, 2021). This was true in my case. It felt rather decadent to go to another space on campus and eat free food, when I have a perfectly fine writing space in my building.
It worked well for me. Simply registering for this event, committing to going, and working alongside others allowed me to be very productive. I wrote the outline of the application and felt good about what I’d achieved. I also had a few ideas about how to frame the research that we’re doing – I’m pretty sure these ideas wouldn’t have come during a usual work day.
Writing in concentrated chunks was good. My typical workday is very long and is an undisciplined mix of busywork, firefighting, procrastination, and “real work”. I’ve tried pomodoro and while that works for monotonous tasks like marking, I find that stopping the creativity at 25 min is too disruptive. 45 min is a nice block and having an enforced relaxation helped to refocus for the next block. When the day finished, I returned to my office with the aim of doing some other work, but I felt pretty spent. So I think 5 x 45 min blocks of pure writing may be near the maximum productivity for one day (thought to be 3-4 h per day).
The commitment to attending was critical. A few days before, I was told that an important speaker was visiting to give a seminar on the day of the retreat and that I was required to meet them. Having signed up, I was able to refuse and stick to my plan of having a writing day. Of course, I usually block time in my diary and/or work from home to focus on writing. But under those circumstances, I would change my plans and come on to campus and meet the speaker. Having committed to the event, it was important to not cave in. The point here is that if you need to write, something will always come up. The trick is to not let it derail your writing, if you can help it.
There is another event planned in a few weeks, but my plan is to properly reserve (and protect) some time to write in blocks, and see if I can do that without the crutch of an organised event.
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The post title comes from “Retreat To Nowhere” by Napalm Death from their second LP “From Enslavement To Obliteration”.