Now Is a Great Time for a DIY Writing Retreat

Elsewhere I have written about the value that writing with others brings in terms of accountability, productivity, and writing craft. Writing retreats are one strategy for incorporating writing with others into your scholarly practice. Some campuses may host writing retreats for advanced doctoral students or faculty. In addition, higher ed adjacent businesses offer virtual and in-person writing retreats ranging from one day to a week on a fee basis. But if writing retreats aren’t available on your campus, the timing is wrong, or the cost is not in the budget, you can always plan your own.

The beauty of a DIY writing retreat is that you can customize the length, setting, and activities to suit your own needs and work style. You can plan a solo retreat or find a couple of colleagues who share your goals to make space for writing.

Here are some suggestions to get you started on planning your retreat.

1. Make space for the retreat. Whether you choose a day, a weekend, or a week for your retreat, you’ll need to clear your calendar and find ways to get other obligations off your plate. Helen Sword (Air + Light + Time + Space, 2017) suggests that one factor contributing to the success of writing retreats is that they are institutionally sponsored to some degree, creating the sense that academic labor is recognized and supported. Suppose your campus doesn’t offer writing retreats. In that case, you might still find support for one by negotiating freedom from administrative duties, committee work, and email if your retreat falls during typical work hours. Might professional development funds be used for housing or meals during the retreat?

But we also need to make space for the retreat in our personal lives. Perhaps that means asking a partner to take over household chores or childcare responsibilities so you can focus on your writing. For single parents, this can be more challenging. Do you have colleagues with young children with whom you might be able to swap childcare duties for a day-long retreat? Or can you schedule your retreat day at a time when school or daycare is in session?

2. Know what works best for you. If time and finances allow, finding a short-term rental in an inviting locale might be perfect for your retreat. Again, Sword suggests that the best retreats “foster productivity and pleasure in equal measure” (p. 2017). The rental should provide the right kind of space for writing (i.e., a good work table), and while you may want to minimize distractions, access to the Internet is probably important. If you plan a retreat with colleagues, make sure a good mix of private and communal workspace is available so that everyone’s needs can be accommodated. What other amenities might you want to access when you aren’t writing (e.g., good, local restaurants; places to walk, run, bike, or swim; a drop-in yoga studio)?

If you plan to retreat at home, think about what you may need to break out of your everyday routine. Can you set up a workspace in a different part of your home? Maybe you can plan to work for a morning or afternoon at a coffee shop to break things up. Do you need to declutter your home office in the days leading up to the retreat so that you aren’t distracted by other things when you sit down to write?

3. Create a plan. Whether you are retreating for a day, a weekend, or a week, create a rough schedule for your time, interspersing work times with breaks. Use the breaks to recharge and perhaps reflect on the working sessions. The breaks might include meals, reading for pleasure, physical activity, listening to music—anything that you find relaxing and pleasurable. If you are retreating with others, breaks are an excellent time to celebrate your successes and share frustrations you may be experiencing.

A word about meals: depending on your setting and schedule, you may plan to eat out or order in. If you cook some or all of your meals, consider doing some meal prep in advance to maximize your writing time. Also, stock up on your favorite healthy (and perhaps some less healthy) snacks. For group retreats, consider rotating meal prep responsibilities among retreatants.

4. Set realistic goals. Related to your retreat plan is identifying goals for what you will accomplish. For example, perhaps you want to complete a journal manuscript. In that case, it is helpful to think about all the tasks you need to finish to reach that goal. Your task list might simply list the sections you need to write, but it might also include a couple of published studies you need to read for the literature review or a list of tables or figures you need to create. Once you have this specific task list, you might assign particular tasks to writing blocks in your retreat schedule.

One of my former colleagues regularly goes on writing retreats, and he talks about incorporating stretch goals in his retreat planning. For a weekend retreat, drafting the introduction, literature review, and method section of a journal manuscript might be a realistic goal; a stretch goal might be those three sections and writing up the findings. He also recognizes that his manuscripts are on a continuum and that the primary purpose of the retreat is to move the manuscript along the continuum—whether or not he achieves the goals he initially set out for himself.

5. Engage in advanced preparation. Your retreat planning might include researching and securing a rental property, meal planning and grocery shopping, roughing out a schedule, coming up with some goals, or decluttering your workspace. But it should also include identifying support files (e.g., datasets, published research, early drafts) that you need to have access to during your retreat. If these are stored on an institutional server, will you be able to access them from off-site? If not, you may want to place copies on your hard drive temporarily. Having your files available and organized ensures that you can make the most of your time while on retreat.

Retreats offer a break from our regular routines and should leave us feeling renewed. Perhaps, that sense of renewal comes from the pride you feel for making time for your scholarly pursuits; the gratitude you feel toward family, friends, and colleagues who helped make it possible; or the sense of accomplishment that comes from making progress toward your goals.

I’d love to hear from you. If you have planned writing retreats in the past, what has worked well for you? If you are thinking about planning a retreat, what questions do you have?