Virtual Writing Retreat

My friend Carmen and I had a dream — to go on a writing retreat together. You see, we are both mothers to young boys, both squeezing in writing time in the wee hours of the morning (her) and the late nights (me), both trying to get as much done in the little amount of spare time that we have. Which was why we decided that we take a few days and focus on our writing.

That didn’t happen.

Why? Omicron and her moving out of the country getting pushed up. We were both very disappointed, but we made the best of it by having a virtual retreat. Because in the year of 2022 in the never ending pandemic, we do everything virtual, so why the hell not a writing retreat too?

Of course, it didn’t go as planned either but once again, we made the best of it. Shit happens.

If you are wanting to take a little time to focus on your writing, I highly recommend doing a writing retreat. I’ll tell you how we did ours.

Choose the right time

If you are doing this with others, you can’t always pick just the right time. But I recommend picking a time when you could really use several hours to work on something. Whether you are drafting or revising, choose a time when you can make the most of it. If you’ve just sent something to beta readers and are waiting for feedback, that probably isn’t the right time. Or you are about to query and don’t have much going (unless you want to prep for that I guess). I would do it at a time where you can get a lot (hopefully) accomplished.

Pick your location

Carmen booked an Air B&B for the night. I just hid in the bedroom while my husband took care of our son. Obviously removing yourself from your house / apartment and all responsibilities is best, but it wasn’t really in the cards for me.

Have a goal

We each knew what we were going to work on beforehand. I was adding a new chapter to the ms I was revising, and Carmen was working on a short story. My only goal was to write that chapter and get it in decent shape. I had no aspirations of achieving anything beyond that, since my day wasn’t going to be a full day with having to help some with my kiddo.

Make a plan

If you are doing your retreat with someone else, figure out how you want to handle it. We decided to have check ins every 1.5 hours, just to see how things were going, if we needed to discuss anything. That gave us long enough to get some good work in, but it was a nice little break too. Maybe you only need a check in at lunch and late in the afternoon. Or maybe you want to check in more. Maybe you want to hop on zoom the whole time so you can chat as needed, or if you are brainstorming a project, that would be helpful.

Prep

We each did prep work beforehand, so we could make the absolute most of our time. Since I was adding a new chapter, I made sure to get everything revised before that chapter (although that didn’t go quite as smoothly since the day before I decided to reorder MORE chapters. But I’m going to talk more about revisions in the future). So do whatever it is you need to do so that you hit the ground running, whither that is research or outlining or whatever. Be prepared.

Limit distractions

This is YOUR time. As much as we all love (or hate) social media, don’t waste your time on it unless you are taking a break or you need it for a specific reason (I had to look at Instagram a few times to see how it was set up for my chapter). But keep the social media and other distractions to a minimum. That’s one reason it would be good to go somewhere else because you won’t have as many, but it might not be an option. And that’s okay! I was at home. I just had to really turn off that “NEED TO ALL THE THINGS” part of my brain and focus. You deserve this time. So you can also put that into the prep – whatever it is you need to do to limit those distractions, do it.

For me, this also meant I promised to keep my random babbling to a minimum. For the most part, I succeeded.

Gather what you need

If you are leaving the house, make sure you have everything you’ll need. Laptop, charger, notebooks, pens, gallons of coffee, snacks. Whatever it is you will need to make it the most productive time. Do you like listening to music? Make your playlist ahead of time. Do you need your cozy sweater? Get it washed and ready. Do you need your Emotional Thesaurus by your side? Set it with your things before you go! Even if you aren’t leaving the house, get your stuff together so you don’t have to dig through all of your stuff to find just the right post it notes.

Have a start time

You don’t have to start at the same time if that isn’t possible, and that’s ok! Talk about it the day before. Know when you and everyone else are going to start and then set up your check in times. I started earlier than Carmen and then she checked in when she was getting started. I stopped before she did, but I checked in with her after. And of course we talked that night about it. (I should state that we do text all of the time, so it isn’t like we aren’t in constant communication, but still, you get my point).

Our retreat was only a day, and that may be all you need (it was really all we could get away with at the time). Of course when we planned to do it in person, we had hoped to do it for a long weekend or something. But even one day was fantastic.

So this is just what worked for us. It was such a fun experience, knowing that even though we couldn’t physically be together writing, we were both working on our projects at the same time and supporting each other.