Retreat with Me!
on planning, organising and getting generally overexcited about it
For a long time, I have been thinking about spreading the writing retreat love a little wider than with my beloved writing group and this week, I have finally done it. It feels like a natural path for me as it coexists with my coaching training and adds to my experience in facilitating writing groups.
I am a long term believer of retreating to write and that’s because of the magic that happens in a protected space. They are places that you can achieve goals in your writing that seem impossible when at home. They allow you to sink deeply into your project without being pulled back out into the humdrum of home life.
Katherine Collette, author ofThe Helpline andThe Competition, was kind enough to lend me her thoughts on the retreats I have organised to date.
I’ve been on many writing retreats with Meg Dunley and plan to go on many more. She understands writers need time and space to write but also, encouragement and connection.
Meg’s convened groups and coached writers across many years. She’s not only insightful and smart, she’s funny and fun and warm and the spaces she creates for writers are all of those things too.
You will finish this retreat with words but also with writing friends.
Retreat with Me is happening later this month. It’s near Daylesford and will run from 27-30 July. There’s only five places available, so please get in quickly if this is something that you would like to do. If you’re keen but this date doesn’t work for you, send me an email to go on the waiting list for the next one.
Pop over to my website to find out more.
Things worth sharing
a good newsletter from Dan Koe about focus and setting goals (my favourite topics)
for those like me who are curious about tools people use for their comms, Jeremy Caplan always has something interesting and geeky in his WonderTools newsletter
I’m a long time lover of George Saunders’s newsletter and his one this week “Report from Retreat” while he was on a solo retreat is about revising words: “So, when re-reading something new we’ve written, we want to notice exactly what’s happening to us as we read. Let it all in. Deny nothing. Whatever we notice can be worked with.” Wise words.
I have new story out in the world and it made me feel all the happy feelings. It’s a story that started from a prompt at a Writers Victoria Live Write session (well worth joining if you have a spare half hour on Fridays at midday or on Tuesday evenings at 8pm). The story came to me from the prompt of ‘coming out of the shadows’. I’m glad it’s out there for others to read. You can read ‘Farm Hand Needed, Comes with House and Dog’ in Outback Anthology Volume 8 published by Boolarong Press.
Until next time xx Meg