This will be a short post because I am spending four days at a "writers' retreat" with two of my close writer friends, Vicki Delany and RJ Harlick. We have been getting together two to three times a years for three or four days. Typically we go to Vicki's 140 year-old farm house in Prince Edward County, Ontario in June, to my lakeside cottage in late summer, and Robin's cabin in the Quebec backwoods during the fall for the gorgeous fall colours or in the winter. Each season and each place has its own charm and rhythm. Sometimes other writer friends like Linda Wiken come too, and I have also done writers' retreats with her and the rest of the Ladies Killing Circle for years.
We each contribute to the food and the wine, both of which are sumptuous, and cleanups are also a chance to chat, exchange stories, and laugh as well. There was a time when there were more of us, which meant more food, more chaos, and more fragments of conversation but still lots of camaraderie and support. And that, in essence, is the purpose of our writers' retreats. We talk shop, we share horror stories and moments of triumph and joy, whether it's a touching email from a fan or a slamming review. We dispense advice and therapy about this exasperating, frustrating, often disappointing but occasionally exhilarating world of writing. We catch up on industry gossip, brainstorm plot ideas and titles, troubleshoot blocks, and discuss the next dream.
Do we get any actual writing done? Usually, but not necessarily. Most of us have a schedule we like to maintain, in my case a scene a day, which typically takes two to four hours, but between the breakfast and morning coffee, then the day's activity (shopping in "The County", kayaking at the cottage, hiking at the cabin...) , lunch, more activity, afternoon drinks, dinner prep, etc. etc. Well, the day often gets away from us. Usually I am happy to steal two hours of writing time over the course of the retreat.
But the shared activities and the social support are just as important. Writing is a very solitary life. We spent hours a day holed up with our own imaginations, working on a project that no one even sees for months, even years. We write it, polish it, send it off to the publisher, edit it, rewrite, and so on, often all accomplished without actually talking to a soul about the work except by email or text. Even the editing process is all remote. Track Changes is our way of talking. Wow, the editor made a comment! Yay!
And once the book is out in the world, people we will never meet pick it off a bookshelf or online, they devote a few days or weeks of their life to reading it, but we probably never hear what they thought of it. Did they like it? Did it touch them? It's a very solitary way of interacting with the world. That's why book signings, readings, launches and conferences are so meaningful. They connect us to our readers and give us inspiration to keep going.
Writers' retreats connect us to our kindred community. Crime writers, whether we write capers or cosies or gritty thrillers, are a unique breed of writer, and when we get together, we feel among family. There's a Yiddish term "Landzman", which means a fellow Jew from the same town or district. A very useful word to describe that sense of instant connection among people who speak the same language and share the same experiences. That's what writers' retreats are good for. Not for getting
pages of brilliant prose down on the page but for making us feel less alone.
