This Is What a Writing Retreat Looks Like
I’m well and truly into my solo writing retreat down at my holiday house in WA’s southwest. I call it a writing retreat because it sounds nicer than I’m-going-to-spend-5-days-staring-at-a-computer and it is, truthfully, a retreat from life so I can do nothing but write.
I do this a couple of times a year—take off, just me and my laptop, and go and write. First drafts and edits, or if I’m stuck or on a tight deadline, are the best times for me to go as that’s usually when I’m searching for breakthroughs or focussed time or just the right circumstances to really go deeply into the story.
I mentioned in a previous newsletter that I’m in the first draft stages of my 2026 book. And I mentioned in my last newsletter that I had to cancel my planned writing retreat because I got COVID. But I bounced back fast from COVID and managed, in a moment of utter serendipity and the stars aligning, to find another week that worked for everyone in my family and I’m making the most of it. Three days in and I’ve written more than 10,000 words, meaning I now have more than 80,000 words of this first draft written.
My goal is to walk away from this retreat feeling like I’ve done some good writing, as opposed to workman-like writing, and I also wanted to figure out how to wrap this story up in the final third. The draft was only supposed to be about 90,000 words, but I know it’s going to come in at around 100k now because I’m definitely not into the wrapping-up part of the story yet!
So what does a typical writing retreat day look like? Let’s take a look!
I Have to Start the Day Right
On a normal weekday, I get up at 6am. On retreat, I let myself sleep in a little because throwing yourself completely into a manuscript is mentally exhausting and it’s important to get a good night’s sleep. Boring, but true!
I get up around 7am, eat breakfast, then go for a run or a walk. My favourite part of this morning routine is throwing myself into the ocean at the end. The water is the kind of cold that makes you grin and splash like you’re a little kid. I always walk out feeling wide awake and alive, and then I love the hot shower that follows!
After that, I sit out on the deck with a hot cup of tea and do my morning pages, a quick meditation and listen to some poetry. Then I do nothing for about fifteen minutes. Just sit and stare at the water and the trees, listen to the noises, let my mind wander.
A really important, but underrated part of being a writer, is giving yourself the gift of time to just think. Allowing your imagination to quite literally run away with itself. And it always does, picking up some scene I’ve already written or some future scene I’ve yet to write and conjuring it up into perfect detail.
I make sure I scribble done anything that comes up in that quiet time, because I won’t remember it when I need it unless it’s written down. Then I go inside, to my desk, and begin.
The Writing
I let myself write a little more slowly on retreat. I want these words to be good words, want to write the kinds of sentences that make me feel like I have the best job in the world. But, at the same time, I also want to progress, so if I feel like I’m just getting too hung up on any one sentence or paragraph, I remember that sometimes you just need to get our of your head and let your hands do the work. So I’ll move on and write fast for a bit and sometimes the sentence I was stuck on will work itself out. And sometimes it won’t, and, for now, it will just have to be a boring sentence. Not all sentences need to quotable quotes. Sometimes, your characters just need to say, “and I turned off the light and went to sleep”, and that’s okay.