Tomorrow afternoon I go away to my very first “Writers’ Retreat”. A week in a remote Pennines location with like-minded folk; four full days with nothing to get in the way of writing – and walking, talking, reading, and taking photographs.
Perhaps it’s long overdue, I don’t know. But I can confess to being a little nervous.
Not about the writing, per se – although the prospect of having all that time to dedicate to it, maybe up to 8 hours per days, is daunting enough. After all, is it possible / desirable to try and fill every available moment trying to be creative? Somehow I doubt it.
It’s more about the environment and the company; and by company I don’t mean the other writers on the Retreat with me, but rather myself. How will I perform as company for me – if that makes sense?!
I go away with a kind of plan in terms of what I’d like to be working on, but fully expect to come back with something I hadn’t foreseen – which is fine of course. Success will, I suppose, be the production of something, progressing something already in-train, and whatever it is being of sufficient quality. Success may end up being other things too, of course: a great photo, new friends, finding answers to questions I didn’t realise that needed to be addressed…
Exciting stuff.
Ian Gouge - Writer 