Start small; aim high!
It’s easy to feel you need to meet the needs of others - your family, your friends – before you can make time for yourself.
But, if you are anything like me, being creative makes you tick. So, it’s important to recognise, and encourage others to recognise, that writing is an important part of your life.
Start small: tap into opportunities to meet and write with other writers. Join online write-ins. Just for an hour. Enjoy quality time with other writers. Doing what you want to do: write! And, aim to do that every day?
Aim high: imagine escaping for a weekend to attend a writers’ retreat. By the sea …
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Writing and writing and writing, in beautiful surroundings.
Discussing the writing process, and gaining a greater understanding of how other writers write (while enjoying the view!).
Sharing your writing and listening to that of others, and giving and receiving helpful feedback (while enjoying a cream tea!).
Meeting new writers and forging friendship that can help your writing to progress.
Just once a year? Start small, but aim high …
Thank you, Anne. It's important to listen and share ideas. After a covid break, we have restarted our small local writing group - some 7 or 8 attendees, all bringing something different to the table - techniques and experiences. Invaluable, but yes, new inputs are healthy every now and then - and cream teas!
ReplyDeleteIt would take other writers prompting me write with a view like that as I'd want to be out in it!
ReplyDeleteThank you, good advice indeed. At moment I depend on this blog and TPF X gathering on a Tuesday morning as my contacts with writing buddies but if I could find a group near me who have somewhat similar writing goals that would be great too.
ReplyDeleteA writers' retreat sounds interesting. Can anyone who has been on one tell me what they made of it, and whether it seems more useful for certain types of projects than for others? Thanks, Patsy and Anne.
ReplyDeleteI’d heard about the writing retreat because we’ve stayed more than once at The Cottage hotel (and love it!). I can imagine it’s a perfect place for a retreat! I’d love to go one day.
ReplyDelete@ Marguerite – I totally agree we need contact with other writers. In person is ideal, if we can find suitable people and get them together, but online is a lot better than nothing.
ReplyDelete@ Alex - I'd need some time to explore too.
@ Sheelagh – Finding the right people isn't always easy. It's worth trying though.
@ Eirin - They vary hugely! I kind of do my own when away in the van, but being with others who are also working can be very helpful and motivating. Just being around other creative people can spark ideas and enthusiasm.
A mini writing retreat in a coffee shop might be a good way to give a group of writers a kick start. A retreat of days or weeks might be a brilliant way to focus on writing a novel.
Some retreats are led and can feature lessons or workshops, group discussions, feedback as well as writing time. Some are much less formal.
@ Maria - I've been there too - with Anne. We ran a couple of weekend workshops a few years ago. If it's somewhere people can get to, and they can afford to invest the time and money into their writing and fancy a retreat, I highly recommend it.
There are lots of other retreats available in other places, for different periods of time though. Even virtual ones.