A Writer's Retreat

I used to go on writers retreats with my colleagues in the business, and I miss it.

Let’s begin with some background.

He called his mansion Naulakha, which means (if I recall correctly) a precious jewel. It was designed to vaguely resemble a mighty ship at sea. He didn’t live here long. When one of his children passed away there, he couldn’t take the heartache, and could no longer live in the same place. He packed up the family and moved back to England.

Clockwork Storybook was a writers group formed far too many years ago. Its purpose was to write a monthly shared-world online story magazine called Clockwork Storybook, of course. Then we broke up. Like many teams composed of talent and egos, there were a series of falling outs (the details are no one’s business but ours), until we disbanded.

Time passed and then I was seriously behind on a novel called Peter and Max¹, and had to finish it in a couple of weeks. So I rented Rudyard Kipling’s mansion in Vermont in which to do so. When I got there I discovered how wonderful the place was. This was the home in which both Jungle Books were written. The house in which Mowgli was built. In fact, since all of Kipling’s old furniture had been recently rediscovered and restored to the place, I not only got to finish writing Peter and Max in the same room in which Kipling wrote Mowgli, I wrote it on the same desk. Not a copy.

I had to share this news. I had to brag. So I called the old Clockwork writers (it was high time for the four of us to start talking to each other again), and I called another writer/friend, and invited them up for an extended weekend, carved out of my two-week stay.

This became the first of many writing retreats to come. In fact we recreated the Clockwork Storybook group under a new idea: We weren’t going back into business with each other (probably the main thing that killed us the first time), but our purpose was to support each other in our individual careers. The one most important rule: When we need story advice, you agree to pick up the phone and talk it out. That’s it. That’s the crux of it. And also, let’s get together again from time to time on future writing retreats.

It worked. We wrote separately during the days, punctuating the day with breaks to talk about anything and everything. We took turns cooking meals. And in the evening we sat in the office and read what we’d written.

They went home. I still had another week at the place, alone, except for the good ghost of Mr. Kipling (and I do believe the spirit of his ofttimes guest Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have dropped by too — he and Kipling used to enjoy chipping golf balls into the crowd of gawker/visitors who were kept to the edge of the property). I finished the novel with a day to spare.

Having decided writing retreats are helpful…

We did it again and again.

We rented a hunting lodge in the Texas Hills. Another time it was a lux resort village outside of Las Vegas, which we had nearly to ourselves (it was off season). There was also a Lake Travis swimming, boating and writing weekend. Each time we got work done and ate too well, and were able to talk books and writing and everything else with like-minded souls.

Even when I couldn’t coax anyone else to go…

The main building started as a fortress, but later crenelations were filled in and the entire structure was roofed, becoming more of a villa.

I would occasionally go off on my own to write. Best of all was the two weeks in Italy, when I rented one of the outbuildings of Machiavelli’s Castle (which you should visit. It’s a lovely hotel-retreat now, run by the current countess descendant of Machiavelli). I wrote every day, took long walks, and ate every night in some new, lovely Florence area restaurant. And I got so much work done I still can hardly credit it.²

I told you all of that so I can tell you this…

I miss those retreats. I miss working in proximity with writers whom I admire. And, because I am once again behind on a huge project (about which you’ll hear much hoopla in not quite a year), I miss the remarkable amount of work I was always able to get done in such an environment.

So I’m thinking of doing it again.

It probably won’t be soon, which means I’ll just have to struggle through bringing the current job in on my own, in my own home where distractions abound. But I suspect I intend to do it for the next job. Yeah, there’s always a next job.

Here’s what I know about it so far:

It will take place somewhere that qualifies it as a getaway, so not in anyone’s house. It won’t be a convention, as in: no dichotomy of guests vs. attendees. It will be a small group of writers who need to work during the day, and who will be able to manage cooking a fine meal for the group, when it’s their turn. It will not be strictly a Clockwork Storybook group. We’ve drifted far apart by now and, like Camelot, it was a brief, shining moment, not to be repeated. It will be by invitation only to writers I admire. Preference will be given to writers gifted in the art of conversation-sans-haranging-filibusters. It will only include published writers who already have a career firmly in place. Too often writing groups and writing retreats are formed around ambitious would-be writers looking for the secret of “breaking in.” While there is absolutely a place for those sorts of events and groups, this is not that.

I have no idea if this posting will be interesting to you folks, but it’s what’s on my mind at the moment, so it’s interesting to me.

1. My title for the book was Peter and Max. The publisher, for reasons none of their people would ever explain (nor admit who did it — apparently it happened spontaneously) changed my title to Peter & Max, substituting the hated ampersand. Yeah, I don’t like ampersands, which may be a failing on my part, but I can only be me.

2. The book I wrote during this retreat was the urban fantasy thriller called Hammer of the Gods, which is currently available signed in my store, or through Amazon and Kindle. It’s about what happens to the ancient super weapon of Thor’s hammer, after it is discovered in modern times, long after the events of Ragnarok.