Retreat Retreating Retreated. Why I Love Writing Retreats

This retreat felt different.

It is a place I know--"The Barn" at Boyd's Mill, a retreat facility run by the Highlights Foundation. This was my fourth time retreating with them, and let me tell you, these people are experts.

I am something of an expert now myself on what makes a perfect retreat, and I think what it comes down to is a blend of

• setting (remote countryside/woods in Eastern Pennsylvania) 
• characters (writers)
• plot (extended, unstructured time to write)

Oh, and

• food. In this case, chef-prepared meals, three times a day. Appetizers and wine at night. All you can eat snacks. (I am a sucker for Twizzlers and somehow, they know that.) 

Woods. OMG Do you see a bear?

For this retreat, I'd signed up for what they call an "unworkshop." You get to use the facilities, eat the food, and chat it up with whatever writers happen to be hanging out at the same time.

I was looking forward to the quiet. The walks in the woods. Making real progress on a new manuscript.


I didn't get as much quiet as I'd planned.

There happened to be tons of other writers unworkshopping, as well as a more formal novel writing workshop going on. I know a lot of these people, some in real life (I carpooled to Boyd's Mill with my writer friend Natalie D. Richards) and some from online. The YA book world isn't very large and many of us have bumped into each other at a conference or book signing or virtually bumped into each other on social media. These people are my friends, and I wanted to chat with them-- instead of holing myself up in a quiet cabin and writing.

Someone saw a bear when she was walking in the woods!! So, uh, that put a slight damper on  my wanting to take walks alone goal. I did, one day, take the risk and hiked out into the woods, live tweeting that "event" in case a bear happened to attack me... and I guess a twitter follower might notify the authorities of my death by bear mauling?

And I took lots of walks with other writers. We had conversations that ranged from, oh my God did you hear that? Is that a bear? To working out plot holes in our stories. To freezing and pointing into the dark underbrush at--oh my GOD--do you think that was a bear?

I ate too much food.

It's an issue I have. Throw food at me, particularly gourmet food, food that I do not have to prepare myself, and I will eat it. Also, if you throw wine at me, I will drink it. Luckily, Highlights had purchased lots of wine for me.

I mean, for us.

One day I did the 7 AM yoga. Lately, I get up extremely early. Boom. Six AM and I am snapping awake for no good reason and often I will ponder about that. WHY am I waking up so damn early?? I will think. And why did I not have this particular skill in years past when my kids were young and I was cursing the dawn (and them) and blearily waking to feed them and praying that I could lie back down while they were engrossed in Scooby Doo episodes?

But I digress.

Yoga. It was fun. Just me and one other early riser.

I felt very virtuous that morning and rewarded myself by eating several extra slices of bacon.

The talks we retreat-goers had a dinner were illuminating. Stuff about the writing process and what we are working on and struggling with and excited about. But also stuff about finding balance between writing and life. Spouses. Kids. Book promotion. The Publishing Business.

I don't know how I would've felt about conversations like this on my first retreat. Back then, I was just trying to break in. Publishing was an impenetrable wall and I had no idea how to scale it. Now I'm on the other side.

First lesson: there are more walls.

Most of the people on this retreat have at least one book out. Some have many. One morning the topic veered to money. Specifically: How Do You Make a Living Writing Books When the Reality Is That It's Nearly Impossible To Make a Living Writing Books?

The answer? You do what you can. Teach (like the writers who were facilitating the novel writing workshop). Critique manuscripts. Write in other genres (a popular moneymaking venture, apparently, is writing erotica under a pen name).

Most of the writers have non-writing jobs.

When I wasn't chatting or trekking through bear country or eating, I was writing. The Barn has a loft--a place I'd discovered the last time I was there--and I claimed it for myself again, spreading out my papers and laptop and Twizzlers and tapping away during the afternoons.

My big goal was to input a first draft into a new Scrivener document, but I wasn't quite sure how to set that up and in a moment of pure serendipity, I discovered that one of the other writers teaches classes on using Scrivener, and she got me all squared away. So, HA!

That alone was worth the price of admission.

That and the bacon. And the never-seen-by-me bear.

I am thinking that bear may have been made up. It was a writer, after all, who claimed to have seen it.

portrait of a writer on retreat

My Eureka Re-Vision Moment (with a fun look at other writers' visual snapshots of their revision processes)

I mentioned last week that when it came to being on the receiving end of a critique, I was a weird mix of anxiety and arrogance. My inability to take criticism is one of the reasons why it took me so long to break through and get that first publishing deal.

Another big thing that tripped me up was my misunderstanding of the revision process -- and by "tripped me up" I mean "took me 15 years." (during which time I wrote and "revised" 5 books)

Arrogance. I knew how to write. I'd been writing since I could hold a pen. I majored in Creative Writing in college. I worked on a freaking MFA in Poetry.

Arrogance. I knew how to write a short story. I had stories published, damn it.

Anxiety. --that naggy voice in my head whispering: "If you know so well how to do this, why isn't it working for you?"

A little background on my Revision Process--such as it was--from my teenage years up to six years ago:

I wrote something. I fiddled around with it. I edited it. DONE

And when I started writing books:

I wrote a sentence. I fiddled with that sentence until it was perfect. I moved on to Sentence Two. I made it to the end of one of these beautifully constructed sets of sentences and prided myself on what I had. Not a first draft, but more like a 3rd or 4th draft. Immediately, I sent this brilliant gem of a manuscript out to editors and agents....
              ...and collected a nice pile of rejections.

The turning point came six years ago when I went to a Highlights Foundation workshop on revision and the speaker suggested putting the completed first draft away (because this is what it is, folks, no matter how polished, a FIRST draft--your very first time through the story from beginning to end.) Let it sit for a month or two. Print it off in a different font (That little tidbit in and of itself was worth the price of admission for me) and read the thing through as a whole completed story.

Revision means literally Re-Vision-- looking at your story, again, and seeing what you actually have there. THE BOOK on the page. And not the book you imagined. (Sigh) (I will note here that even now when I read a first draft through from beginning to end, I feel intense waves of nausea as I contemplate how crappy it is and how much work I have yet to do.)

There was more illuminating information thrown at us during that session and I took notes like a maniac trying to get it all down, light bulbs popping in my head. In all my years of writing I had never thought of revision like this before.

And no wonder.

I had been trained at writing short stories. I can keep a short story--the entire thing-- in my head at once. If I wanted to (not that I ever did), I could print off the pages and arrange them on my dining room table and look at them.

You can't do that with a book.

It's really really hard to keep an entire book-- all the plot strands and character arcs and scenes and bits of dialogue --in your head at once. Even if you are an outliner (I'm not) your draft may drift away from you, meander off in different directions, gallop toward some other story (maybe a BETTER story) than the one you envisioned when you started.

I don't care how beautifully written each of your sentences are, when you get to the end of a first draft, it is still a first draft, and if your drafts are like mine, they are a mess. (See intense waves of nausea, above)

This past weekend I presented a session at a regional SCBWI conference on how to move from a messy first draft toward what will eventually be a draft that you can submit to an agent or editor. Something I know now, that I did not know six years ago when I shuffled into that revision workshop at Highlights, is that there is no one right way to Do This. And my way--the way I eventually figured out through trial and error and lots and lots of crappy drafts-- is not the only way. In fact, with each book I have to figure out the process again.

I won't bore you with all the details, unless you're interested-- and in that case, email me and I'll send you my latest method  jodycasella (@) yahoo (.) com

In the meantime, for your visual pleasure, take a look at some other writers' snapshots of their writing and revision process:

(Erin Dealey)

(Jennifer Salvato Doktorski)

(Bill Thomas)

(Liz Coley)

(Natalie D. Richards)

(Stephanie Kuehnert)

(Kristina McBride) 

(Mindee Arnett) 

(CJ Flood)

(Jennifer Mann)

(Kristy Boyce)

(Claire Caterer)

(Kristi Belcamino)

(Crissa-Jean Chappell) 

(Nova Ren Suma)

(William Faulkner)

Oh yes. That's William Faulkner, one of the great American novelists.

Even old WF needed a little help with revision. The story is his wife wasn't too thrilled that he'd scrawled some of his draft... on the walls of their house.


PS. A HUGE thank you to all of the writers above (including William Faulkner) for sharing their revision processes with me!!

In Which I Gush about My Retreat, Confess My Biggest Flaw, and Reveal My New Life Goal

And now a break from my regularly scheduled How to Get Published program to gush about my amazing retreat...

Of course, there was the usual recharging of the writing battery, the reminder of why I love writing books and being around others who have the same obsession and love. Where else can you discuss the elements of the Hero's Journey while noshing on gourmet appetizers or gripe about rejections while taking an invigorating walk in the woods? 

I go into every retreat expecting the restfulness and the opportunity to get a lot of work done without the constant interruptions and distractions of daily life.

What I always forget--even though it has happened to me EVERY SINGLE TIME I attend one of these retreats--is how much left I have to learn.

My biggest flaw as a writer (and probably as a person) is my reluctance to hear criticism. I am getting better at this! But there is always that icky feeling when someone tells me what's not working in a manuscript.

I had brought a novel with me for the plane trip--one of the huge tomes from my teetering TBR stack--Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. This book is over 700 pages but I had the absurd idea that I could read it before I arrived at my retreat. Instead, I barely put a dent in it, and ended up reading bits of it each night and then on the trip home.

Not to get into the whole saga (it's a very good book, if somewhat in need of editing) but one passage jumped out at me, for obvious reasons:

The main character, Phillip, has decided to be a painter. He asks a friend to look at his pictures and the friend says no. Phillip is outraged and asks why. The friend answers simply: "People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise."

This made me laugh because it gets at the heart of my problem. When I ask someone to read my writing what I really want is for them to say that it is perfect just the way it is.

What I learned (again) on this retreat is that my writing is not perfect. (I know, ha ha, right?) but I can handle hearing about the weaknesses and flaws without crumpling or getting defensive. And more than that, I can get EXCITED about figuring out the solution.

It helped that all of the writers there were amazingly supportive and encouraging. 

And I can't say enough about the teacher at the retreat, Kim Griswell. I actually met Kim at an earlier retreat where she was randomly assigned as my mentor.

The first time she gave me a bit of criticism--and she was so NICE about it--I struggled not to cry or make a grouchy face. I'm sure I came off acting like a jerk. Later, after I had time to stew and consider, I knew she was right, and I apologized.

That was the retreat where I heard Newbery Winner Linda Su Park give a speech about how to accept criticism. You look at the person with a blank face and say one word: "Okay." (I wish I had heard that speech BEFORE I had my meeting with Kim.)

At this last retreat, I remembered the "Okay" part and braced myself for whatever Kim was going to lay on me (but inside, I confess that I was hoping she'd just gush about how perfect my writing was.) See, I really do have to learn this over and over.

I'm happy to say that there were no tears or grumpy faces. Okay, I did argue with her. A little. But only because I was trying to understand what exactly had confused her. She was a good sport about it, God love her. And I spent the rest of the week picking Kim's brilliant brain whenever I had the chance.

Here is another thing I have to learn over and over: often that bit of criticism is the key to everything--it's the Way In that was shimmering just out of my reach. Instead of making me weary, it resonates, because it is right. I almost cried during this retreat--not out of frustration, but out of relief. This project that I have been working on for YEARS may actually be one step closer to completion.

Toward the end of the week I got a string of emails from my publishing company. The first official review of Thin Space has come in, and it is a starred review from Kirkus. Not many people outside of the writing world know what this means.

But I can tell you, the writers at the retreat knew.

Kim read the review out loud and there I was, almost crying again.

The retreat was over all too soon and I was doing what I always do as I packed my suitcase, plotting how I could come back. 

Since I truly believe that you have to ask the Universe for what you want if you ever expect to get it, here is my new life goal:

Return, next year, as a teacher. 

On the 8th Anniversary of My First Writing Retreat...

In 2005 I was on the verge of a turning point, but I didn't know it. I was sort of floundering around with my pursuit of a book-writing dream.

I told myself I was working hard. I wrote a couple of days a week. I thought about writing a lot. Truthfully, I thought about being published a lot. I had very vivid daydreams of winning awards and receiving awesome book deal advances. Also, spending book deal advances. Mostly, though, I was spinning my wheels, not making any real progress, treating writing as a hobby rather than as my work.

Then, a very serendipitous thing happened. In the same week I had a story accepted in the magazine Cicada and I got a brochure in the mail inviting me to attend a retreat put on by the Highlights Foundation.

What would you do if you had the time to write... no distractions... no responsibilities... Just you and your lap top. You'll stay in your own cabin and all of your needs will be taken care of... You'll eat delicious food prepared by a chef. You'll meet other serious writers on the same journey...  

I don't remember the exact words printed on the brochure, but it was something like that, and it struck me to the core. Oh, yes, I would like that.

And get this: the cost of the retreat (which was somewhat pricey and hard for me to justify) was EXACTLY the amount of the payment I'd just received for my Cicada story.

I'm no dummy. I know a freaking sign when I see one.

I went. It was my first time away from my family (the kids were 8 and 12 and I was a stay-at-home mom). It was the first time I'd been alone since college.

To say I was anxious is an understatement.

The hardest thing was the first night when our small group made our introductions. Simply saying I wanted to be a writer almost made me start crying. For all of my supposed pursuing of a dream, I hadn't said these words out loud to anyone in years.

The week pretty much changed my life. Not in a magical way. I didn't return home with a finished manuscript that would win an award (although, that particular manuscript is something that I continue to work on, and hey, who knows?) I didn't snag an agent or a book deal right away. In fact it would be many years before this would happen.

What this retreat did do for me was remind me that I was, in fact, a writer. That I was not alone in my quest. That my dream was not some ridiculous thing no matter how impossible it might seem at times.

Here is what I wrote in my journal while I was there:

Seeing these writers and editors makes me so hopeful about what I picture myself doing.  I keep thinking that it is a possible life for me, if I keep pursuing it.  

Tonight I called home and my son asked me if I liked it here or if it was terrible.  I said it was wonderful, that I loved it.  “Are you going to go back there next year?” he asked.  “I’d like to,” I said.  “Would that be alright with you guys?”   

He laughed.  “We’re doing okay, you know. And I like eating poptarts.”

I am thinking about this retreat because in two days I am going back.

I am in a different place now in my writing and personal life. My son is in college--just to put time in perspective. My teen daughter will be off doing her own thing. I am sure they will both be gorging on the forbidden poptarts while I'm gone. I've got my first book coming out this year. I received a nice advance check for that (mostly, already spent). I do think of myself as a writer and I am not afraid to say that anymore. (Maybe I say it too much?)

But here is what is the same: I still feel anxious about what I do. I still have so much to learn about craft and technique and voice and language. I still enjoy connecting with other writers and hearing about their stories and their journeys.

So that is why I signed up to go.

It may be that I am on the verge of another amazing turning point. I'll let y'all know when I come back...

Facing Failure: A How-To in Three Parts

Part One: Wanting
Pursuing a dream starts with two simple words. I want.

In order to go for something, it stands to reason you should be able to say what it is you’re going for. It doesn’t seem like this would be particularly difficult. But somehow it is. I had a friend who was always complaining about her weight. She was miserable but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. One day I asked her, “Well, how much weight would you like to lose?” She began to make excuses about how hard dieting was for her, how she’d tried losing weight before and it never worked, how it was pointless to bother. I asked her again. How much? Twenty pounds? “Oh no,” she said, “I could never lose twenty pounds.” Well, how about ten? “I don’t know,” she said. Then I could tell she was getting annoyed with me, so I shut up.

But it got me thinking. My friend was afraid. If she said she wanted to lose a certain number of pounds, someone might hold her to it and what would happen if she couldn’t do it? Everyone would know—she would know—that she had failed.

I am not knocking this person. I’ve been there myself. There’s a huge risk involved in verbalizing your dream. Saying it, of course, does not simply make it happen. But if you don’t (or can’t) say what you want, well, you’ve pretty much guaranteed that you ain’t never gonna get it.

I have always wanted to be a writer. This was easy for me to say when I was a kid. In fact, I had no problem whatsoever telling anyone who asked me. My mother. My friends. Teachers. By the time I was in fifth grade I was known as the girl who wrote stories. When I was twenty-two, I was still saying it: I want to be a writer.

Then for some reason, I stopped saying it. And not long after, I stopped doing it. Suddenly, writing didn’t seem practical. I had no writer role models except for my professors. I needed to make money. I was growing up, and like a lot of people, I put away my dreams from childhood. I got married. I taught high school English. I had kids. I don’t regret any of this. But at a certain point I started to say the two words again, but only in my head: I want. And the sentence ended with to be a writer.

So I started writing again, slowly, here and there, whenever I might have a stretch of free time (in other words, not often). I went to a writers' conference. I took a correspondence course. I didn’t tell anyone (expect my husband) what I was doing. Writing was just a little hobby.

My big turning point came when I sold a story to a magazine. Then I sold another and with the money I was able to go to a writers' retreat. (Shout out to the people at Highlights, who put on the best retreats and conferences for children’s writers) That retreat was the first time in years that I told complete strangers that I wanted to be a writer. I think I was shaking when I said it. But when I came home, I kept saying it. I am a writer. It was liberating and scary. Liberating because it meant that I was acknowledging again what had once been my dream. And scary because I was opening myself up for questions like, well, what have you written? Which really means, are you published and can I buy your book at a bookstore.

The answer to that is no. But if you ask me what I do now, I will still tell you. I’m a writer. I don’t even shake anymore when the words come out of my mouth.

Tune in for the next installment of Facing Failure. Part Two: Working