Category Archives: The writing life

You Don’t Need a Mission Statement

Many organizations have mission statements. Some people have their own personal mission statement. A few writers have an ‘author mission statement.’ I don’t think you need one, and I’ll explain why.

According to most definitions of mission statements, their purpose is to serve as a goal or agenda, to communicate the organization’s (or person’s) purpose to all stakeholders, and to create a sense of unity and identity.

To those purposes, I would add this: a mission statement can maintain focus and motivation.

Several authors have their own mission statement. Robert J. Sawyer’s is “to combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic.” Dr. Randy Ingermanson’s is “to write excellent novels and non-fiction; to market my work like a mad genius; and to teach other writers to do the same.” Leanne Sowul’s is rather long, but begins this way: “My mission is to write fiction that tells stories from multiple perspectives about a significant moment in time.” Joanne Phillips’ is also long, and starts as follows: “I write stories to entertain and offer a temporary escape into another life.”

If all these authors have mission statements, and many have explained their reasons for having one, why am I suggesting you don’t need one? Who am I to go against the accumulated genius of more successful writers?

I’m not disparaging anyone’s mission statement. If other writers receive some benefit from theirs, more power to them. If you’re determined to come up with one for yourself, I’m not here to talk you out of it.

Also, I’m not against mission statements in general. They’re great for organizations. Even personal mission statements, of the sort advocated by Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, have significant value.

I’m just suggesting, before you invest the time to craft an author mission statement, you might ask yourself why you’re doing it. Do you believe you’ll write better after you have one? Do you occasionally forget why you’re writing and need a reminder? Do you really need the prodding of words on a brass plaque above your desk?

It’s not like you’re leading a team where members will stray off on tangents or act counter to the goal. For your fiction writing endeavors, it’s just you.

Think of other significant roles you have in life, possibly spouse, parent, employee, etc. Do you have written mission statements for any of those individual roles? If not, what makes your writer role different?

Most likely you started your hobby because an inner voice kept screaming “Write!” during your waking hours, and it’s never let up. Do you need more prompting than that?

Remember, time spent honing your mission statement is time not spent writing fiction.

Obviously, you’re free to do your own thing, in your own way. No matter your reason, you might want a written author mission statement, and might glean some benefit from having one.

Please leave a comment if you disagree with me. I’m especially interested in why you crafted your author mission statement, and how you think it has helped you.

For now, writing without any mission statement whatsoever, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 11, 2020Permalink

10 Traits Writers Need Most

What traits do you need to become a successful fiction writer? Of those, which are most important?

Author Anne R. Allen wrote a blogpost some years ago that inspired this line of thinking for me. She had encountered people who thought talent was necessary, and sufficient. They’d send her their written excerpts and ask, “Do you think I’ve got the talent?”

Anne Allen argued, persuasively, that natural talent might aim you in your life’s direction, but is far less important than skill, or several other traits she cited.

I decided to carry the argument in a different direction. Given the traits she mentioned, could I come up with an ordered list from most important to least important?

Using a technique called pair-wise comparison, I used a matrix to compare each trait against each of the others and added up the scores.

First, let’s define each one in alphabetical order:

  • Creativity, or Imagination. This wasn’t on Anne R. Allen’s list, but I consider it important. Basically, it’s the ability to come up with new ideas, to invent characters, plots, scene descriptions, etc.
  • Drive. This is the inner motivation or impulse to write. It’s that determination, that self-discipline, that pushes you to create fictional worlds.
Gratitude symbol
  • Gratitude. By this, Anne meant the willingness to accept help in the form of negative criticism, particularly comments on your manuscript from beta readers and editors. I would have called it Toughness, or Thick Skin, but we’ll keep with Anne’s term.
  • Learning. This is the willingness to acquire new writing skills by educating yourself. There are numerous methods, including studying the classics, taking classes, participating in critique groups, and reading books about writing. Choose the method that works for you.
  • Marketing. This trait measures how well you understand what your readership wants and how well you expose potential readers to your writing. These days, you have to know the market and be willing to advertise yourself.
  • Observation. Anne called this trait “Listening Skills,” but I sought a one-word description. Writers must watch and listen to people, how they behave, what they say, what facial expressions and gestures they use, what verbal expressions and dialect they employ, etc. Such knowledge will make your characters seem more realistic.
  • Passion. This describes your love of writing. Although related to Drive, this is more about the pleasure you derive from the act of writing itself.
Tabono Symbol
  • Persistence. It’s a measure of your willingness and ability to overcome setbacks, to solve problems and move forward, to rise after falling.
  • Skill. This trait describes the quality of your writing. Anne had much to say about skill, but didn’t include it specifically in her list of traits. She defined ‘talent’ as inborn skill, but believed few people had talent, but most could develop skill. Her post suggested that ‘skill’ was an umbrella term that included all the other traits. I believe skill is independent of all of them, and merely addresses how well you write.
  • Solitude. Anne called this ‘The Ability to be Alone’ and made it clear that writing is not just for introverts. It’s just that extroverts must leave their comfort zone for a while, since writing is an individual effort.

Obviously, there are inter-relationships and overlaps among these traits. Still, they’re distinct enough that I was able to rate each one in importance against all the others. Below is my subjective list from most important to least:

  1. Creativity
  2. Drive
  3. Passion
  4. Observation
  5. Learning
  6. Skill
  7. Persistence
  8. Gratitude
  9. Marketing
  10. Solitude

As a general pattern, you can see my most important ones are traits that get you started, and the least important (with the exception of Solitude) are traits you develop as a result of having written and submitted your work.

That list may not seem right to you, but it works for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 2, 2020Permalink

Writing—Routine, Habit, or Ritual?

As a writer, you’re trying to form a daily routine of writing well. Or is that a good habit of writing well? Or a ritual? Let’s clear this up.

According to neuroscience expert Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs, all three are periodically repeating actions, but there are differences. I’m going to put my own spin on the ideas Ms. Le Cunff presented in her article.

Routine. This type of action is conscious and deliberate. A routine requires thought and willpower to do. If a strong intent isn’t there each time, you’ll just stop doing the routine, or you’ll delay it until the last minute.

Examples of routines include exercising, cleaning your room, and paying taxes.

Habit. This is an action prompted by an automatic urge, usually triggered by some cue. The closer your mind connects the action to the cue, the more fixed the habit becomes. Habits can be good or bad, and human nature makes it easy to slip into bad ones and easy to slip out of good ones.

Examples of habits include getting up with an alarm clock, brushing teeth after eating, and checking email first after turning on your computer.

Ritual. An action intended to better yourself, not just maintain your existence. It gives you purpose and fulfillment. Your focus is on enjoying the task, not just getting through it.

Examples of rituals include meditation, learning a new language, and practicing a musical instrument.

If you intend to be a good writer, which of the three are you aiming for? To answer that, you need to understand one more concept first—the Habit Loop.

I believe all habits start off as routines. For example, the first time you brushed your teeth, you had to think through the process. It was a routine, requiring intent and concentration. Later, after it became a habit, you performed it automatically, usually right after eating.

How do routines become habits? By using the Habit Loop.

The idea here is to use a cue of some kind to trigger the task, and then reward yourself for completing it. By shortening the time of the cycle, particularly the cue-routine gap and the routine-reward gap, you help ingrain the routine as a habit. That’s what the inward-pointing arrows signify.

How does all this apply to writing? For simplicity, let’s separate writing into three tasks:

  1. Initiation—sitting down to write. I recommend making this a daily habit. Use the Habit Loop to ingrain it, if necessary. For beginning writers, Initiation is the most important task. After all, the other two can’t take place if you don’t plunk yourself down in the chair to write first.
  • Conceptualization—choosing a genre, constructing a plot, fleshing out characters. I think of this as a ritual, in the sense of being done for the sheer joy of writing. This requires considerable conscious thought and creativity, and should not be considered a chore. Don’t get into a habit rut by writing stories with the same theme, similar characters, common settings, etc. Keep things fresh.
  • Mechanics—stringing sentences together, choosing words, etc. Some days, this may seem like a ritual, an enjoyable task done for its own sake. Other days, it may seem like a routine, a task requiring thought but one you look forward to completing. Perhaps for truly experienced authors, this becomes more automatic, like a habit.

Is writing a routine, habit, or ritual? Apparently, it is all three. It’s a routine/habit/ritual much loved by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 31, 2020Permalink

Why You Bound Out of Bed

The reason you scramble out of bed each day, wide-eyed and raring to go, is simple. You’ve got things to do. More specifically, you have goals to achieve. As Snuffy Smith always said, “time’s a’wastin’!”

What’s that? You don’t bound out of bed? You (shudder) don’t have any goals?

Hoo boy. We’ve got to talk.

There is enormous power in the practice of committing to goals. There are also numerous side benefits for you, incidental to achieving the goal itself.

I’ll offer two examples from my life. Many years ago, my younger sister called me; she was excited because she’d decided to train for, and run, a marathon. Prior to her call, I’d given no thought to running a marathon myself. After that brief phone call, I was committed.

I registered for the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C., at that time about nine months in the future. I bought a book about training for a marathon and followed its plan, including maintaining a running log. Often during that year, I thought I’d never be ready in time. However, I knew the Marines were unlikely to postpone their race just to accommodate me. Still, I ran and finished the race.

As a second example, I recognized, about a year ago, that June 20, 2020, will be the 150th anniversary of the publication of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I set a goal of launching, on that exact date, a sesquicentennial anthology honoring Verne’s novel. I’ve never co-edited an anthology before, but goals should push you outside your comfort zone, beyond your known limits. They should be big, audacious, and grand.

Cover image for 20,000 Leagues Remembered

So far, progress toward that goal has been good. Things are proceeding well. We’ve received wonderful stories and look forward to publishing the anthology on time.

Enough about me. What about your goals?

According to this article by Anya Kamenetz, there are mental and physical health benefits to setting and achieving goals. A University of Toronto study showed performance in school improved for all ethnic groups and genders of students who wrote down and worked toward goals.

When you decide to set a goal, I believe it’s important to write it down, not just memorize it. Performing that simple act:

  • Cements the goal and affirms your commitment to it;
  • Gives direction and meaning to your actions;
  • Paints a picture, a vision, of the future to which you aspire;
  • Creates an urge within you that prods you to achieve daily progress and nags you when you fall behind;
  • Helps you overcome setbacks, laziness, disenchantments, and obstacles;
  • Provides immense satisfaction when every milestone and the final goal are met;
  • Boosts confidence in your ability to achieve; and
  • Spurs you on to setting a new goal after each achieved one.

What’s that you say? You have a problem with the entire ‘goal’ concept? You say you don’t set goals anymore because you feel bad about yourself when you fall short?

Well, you may not achieve all your goals. I haven’t met all the goals I’ve set either. But you shouldn’t beat yourself up over failures. Missing a goal doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

Learn what you can from that failure and set another goal. Consider a smaller one, easier to achieve. Celebrate when you achieve it. You’ll build your confidence one win at a time.  

Pretty soon you’ll be bounding out of bed each day, just like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 17, 2020Permalink

12 Cures for Stir-Craziness

Stay in your homes, the experts tell us. Keep away from others. Don’t gather in bars, restaurants, or theaters. There aren’t any sports. All your club meetings are cancelled. The boss called off that business trip and made you telework. You’re bored, being at home all the time. You’ve gone stir-crazy. What to do?

Here’s my answer—write something.

That’s right. Sit at your keyboard, or grab pen and paper, and write something.

“But,” you’re saying, “I’m not a writer!”

My answer—how do you know?

Here’s my list of stir-craziness cures, staring with the easiest ideas:

  1. Why not make a list of supplies you’re going to need soon? Wow! You’re writing!
  2. Remember that personal organizer book you bought back in 2015, and never used? Dig it out. You could come up with some life goals, and plans to achieve them. Maybe even a personal mission statement. Or a bucket list. You never found time for that before, but you’ve got time now.
  3. Start a journal (or diary, or logbook—call it what you want). Write down whatever occurs to you. Write about social distancing, and how much you hate it. Write about feeling like you’re under house arrest, the isolation and loneliness. Get the emotions out. Write as if nobody will ever read it.
  4. Write emails to relatives and friends you haven’t connected to in a while. Write tweets and Facebook posts. Write old-fashioned letters, on stationery; the Post Office still delivers.
  5. Write an article, essay, or vignette. The topic should be something you know about. At first, write as if you’re not going to send it anywhere. Later, as you look back over it and fix it up, it might not seem half bad. Perhaps it’s publishable.
  6. Start a blog. You can do it. It probably won’t change the world, but it might help you, and that’s a beginning.
  7. If you’re up for fiction, start with something short. There’s the six-word story, the 280-character story (twitterature), the dribble (50 words), the drabble (100 words), sudden fiction (750 words), or flash fiction (1000 words). Editors are looking for good stories of these lengths, and readers like them too.
  8. How about poetry? Can you make words sing, or fly, or lift a heart?
  9. Create a short story, with a few characters, or even just one. Focus on a single effect or mood. Editors and readers love well-written short stories. In fact, I know two editors searching for 3000-5000-word short stories inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Read the rules here, write your story, and send it in!
  10. Write a non-fiction book. You’re an expert in something. Perhaps you can expand that essay you wrote (see #5 above) to book length. Cookbooks, history books, coffee-table books, memoirs—they get bought all the time. Ooh, how about a travel book? Few people are traveling now, but everyone longs to.
  11. Write a children’s book, or YA (young adult). You’ll need a good imagination and the experience of having been young.
  12. Write the Great American Novel. As they say, writing a novel is a one-day event (as in ‘One day, I’ll write a novel’). You’ve got time now; excuses are gone. No need to wait for November; you can have a personal Nanowrimo now.

You may be cooped up, but your imagination isn’t, your words aren’t. Set them free! There’s no charge for this prescription for stir-craziness written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 22, 2020Permalink

Quarantine and the Writing Scene

The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus has got us all thinking. Each of us is reacting in his own way. As a writer, my mind turns toward fiction possibilities.

Please don’t take this post as some attempt to minimize or make light of this contagious and deadly disease. The numbers of infected and dead continue to mount as this new virus spreads around the world. Nobody knows how bad this coronavirus will get. Though panic may be unwarranted, so is blind optimism.

So far, I’m not showing any symptoms and am not under quarantine, neither the imposed nor self-directed kind. To my knowledge, that’s also true of everyone I know well. I’m not blogging about quarantines due to any personal experience, but merely because the topic is timely and it interests me as an observer of society.

COVID-19 is causing some changes in our behavior. For the most part, we’re all washing our hands more often and more thoroughly. We’re travelling less, and going to fewer well-attended events. We’re practicing ‘social distancing,’ and greeting others with fist or elbow bumps. We’re staying in our homes more and connecting with each other virtually.

When TV journalists conduct video interviews of symptom-free people who’ve been quarantined out of caution, the people all say they’re binge-watching movies and playing games to pass the time. (Not reading books? Come on!) But they feel lonely and isolated. They want the two weeks to be over.

That’s understandable. We’re social animals. We gain comfort from the close presence of others. If we now must view others as potential bringers of disease, that sets up an internal conflict, a tension between self-preservation and a need for acceptance.

For most writers, a symptom-less quarantine wouldn’t be so bad. Writing is solitary anyway, and necessary social interaction represents an interruption of the writing process. To some extent, writers practice a quasi-quarantine all the time.

Perhaps because of their self-imposed isolation, authors sometimes write about disease pandemics. Early examples include The Decameron (1353) by Giovanni Boccaccio and The Last Man (1826) by Mary Shelley.

More recent novels about pandemics are The Plague by Albert Camus, The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, and The Stand by Stephen King.

All these works depict horrible results after the disease has run its course. Few novels (except The Plague) show the effects of quarantine, of forced separation.

One extreme fictional example of human separateness, though not involving disease, is The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov. In it, citizens of the planet Solaria grow up detesting the physical presence of other humans. They don’t mind robots, but can only talk to other people through holographic communication, a sort of 3-D version of Skype.

Could COVID-19 or some later, more deadly virus, force us to behave like Solarians, alone in our homes, communicating only by email and text, with drones delivering all our supplies direct from robot factories? What would that isolation do to our psyches, to our instincts for close contact?

There’s your next story idea, free of charge. You may thank me for it, but not in person. Alone (with my spouse) in quasi-quarantine, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 15, 2020Permalink

3 States of Writing Flow

Fellow author Andrew Gudgel wrote a great blogpost on December 19, 2019 regarding writing, and I’d like to expand on it.

His post is titled “Water, Molasses, Glass” and you may have to scroll down to get to it. He compares writing to the densities of three substances—water, molasses, and glass.

Sometimes writing comes easily and flows like water. Other times it’s more difficult and flows like thick molasses. What about glass? Well, that’s probably a bad example, since it’s a solid and doesn’t flow at all. The common belief that it’s a slow-moving liquid is false.

Water, Molasses, and Tar

A better third substance would be tar, or pitch. That is a slow-flowing (highly viscous) liquid. Very patient researchers at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia) have been watching pitch pour from a funnel since 1930. In those ninety years, nine drops have fallen. Nine drops. Rather a slow way to resurface your driveway.

Let’s get back to the writing comparison.

Water. When writing flows like water, life is good. You know what’s coming next, and nothing’s slowing you down. Without effort, you’re churning out words in a steady stream. People have studied this state of mind and call it ‘Flow.’ I blogged about this phenomenon here. It’s great while it lasts, but it always ends at some point. While you’re in that zone, just go for it.

Molasses. Here’s where writing is harder. You’ve got to force the words out. There are long stretches where you’re just thinking and not producing prose at all. You consider doing something more fun, like, say, cleaning the garage. When in this mental state, I suggest a few strategies:

  1. First, try to recall why you started this writing project in the first place. Something made you want to write this story, and you were enthused about it then. Try to recapture that passion.
  2. Second, write an outline, or revisit the one you previously wrote. Jot down where you think the story is going. Or, since you’re stuck for words, create a mind-map of all the possible alternatives for the part you’re stuck on. It could be different plot paths, different scene descriptions, possible character types, or whatever.
  3. Third, consider writing something else for a while. Trust that your subconscious, your muse, will work on the original problem and come up with a solution.

Tar. At a drop each decade, this is truly writer’s block. I’ve written about writer’s block before, both the diagnosis and the cures. There are several things that might be causing your writer’s block, and you have to pick the right cure for your particular cause.

May your words always flow like water and your rejections and negative reviews flow like tar. That’s the writing wish for you from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 16, 2020Permalink

Quit and Start Over?

Songwriter Robert Lopez once wrote, “The temptation to quit and start over infects every creative process I’ve ever been in. Frustration and boredom always fuel this self-doubt.” Let’s analyze this as it applies to writing fiction.

First of all, I think we can agree Mr. Lopez speaks with some authority about the creative process. He’s won multiple Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards, the only person to have done so.  

I suspect nearly every fiction writer knows the experience he alludes to. You get partway into a story, then pause and reflect on what you’ve done so far. Your story looks terrible now. You think it would be better to abandon that draft and start fresh. You’re torn between the fear that no amount of editing will improve the current version and the fear that a new draft won’t be any better.

It’s appropriate that Mr. Lopez used the verb “infects,” invoking the metaphor of viruses and sickness. The temptation to start over does seem like that—spreading inside you, overwhelming your immune system, and making you miserable.

We’ll get to the frustration, boredom, and self-doubt soon. First, let’s examine what happens initially in the process of creating a short story or novel. You come up with the idea, then add to it in your mind. Enthusiasm takes over as the mental picture of the finished work crystallizes. It’s going to be great.

You begin to write, but you find out enthusiasm is a tough emotion to sustain, certainly for a novel, but sometimes even for a short story. The words you’re writing don’t match the gloriously perfect story in your mind. Compared to that ideal vision, the real version stinks. That gap in quality between real and ideal causes the frustration.

As your enthusiasm continues to fade, you lose interest in the story and become bored with it. Your muse moves on to shinier objects and even the thought of continuing the story becomes too much to bear. You’ll do anything to avoid working on it, including the most hated household chores. In this way, boredom has fueled your self-doubt.

Now that Mr. Lopez has put his finger on a very real and universally experienced problem with the creative process, is there a solution? When these negative feelings overcome you, should you edit the draft you started with, or abandon it and start over?

I suspect it’s a very rare occasion when the right answer is to quit and start over. The real problem is, you are no longer in the right frame of mind to write well. What the situation calls for is a break. You should stop editing that story and do something else. Look at the story the next day with fresh eyes and a sunnier mood. You’ll see some things wrong with it, but just maybe the original enthusiasm will return, that zeal you felt when the story was just an idea.

Maybe you’ll decide the problem isn’t a gap between the ideal vision and the faulty reality. Perhaps the vision wasn’t so ideal after all. Don’t be afraid to alter it and work to capture the new vision. This isn’t starting over; this is making a change in light of a new realization.  

Even though writers aren’t immune to the problem Robert Lopez identified, and self-doubt is bound to infect you at some point, you can pull yourself out of it. Most likely, you can salvage the draft you’re working on and won’t have to abandon it to start over.

That’s been my experience with the creative process of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 13, 2019Permalink

Writing on the Move

What happens to stories when a writer moves? I mean when an author pulls up stakes and relocates to a different place. I’ve just done that and I’m wondering how it will affect my writing.

How much is a writer affected by locale? When you write in a room with a window, or even write outside, does that sliver of outside world influence you? When you go about your life—working, shopping, dining out—how much do the immediate surroundings and the local people seep into your fiction?

Assuming that effect is greater than zero, then something has to change when you box up your household goods, load a truck, and transport them to a different location. If your new place is far enough away, maybe several states away, a change in perspective occurs. Nature looks different in the new place. Local people talk differently and have different views.

Remember the famous New Yorker magazine cover from March 1976, showing the world from the perspective of someone living in New York City? Local streets and buildings were well defined, but things got vague and nebulous beyond that. It’s like that for all of us, isn’t it? We have a good handle on our nearby vicinity, but only a rough mental map of the rest of the world.

Now, suddenly, my idea of ‘near’ has undergone a disruption. I have to create a whole new mental map. As of now I must view the entire country from a different angle.

Thanks to modern instant communication, I won’t lose touch with my writer friends from my previous state. We’ll keep our critique group going. But I’ll likely establish new writer friends close to my new house. Assuming I can join a new critique group nearby, their critiques are likely to be different and to emphasize different things. They may well shape my writing, molding it into a slightly altered form.

Only time will tell if readers can discern any difference in my stories, or if I’ll detect any differences myself. I’d love to hear from other writers who have moved. What changes did you experience? Did the move help or harm your writing? Did the new setting for your real life become the new setting for your stories? Did your characters start talking differently?

Let me know. I’d love to hear about the impact of your move on your writing. For me, of course, some things won’t change. I’ll still come up with blog posts; I’ll still have the same electronic contact information; and I’ll still be—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 20, 2019Permalink

Retreating to Write

Would you go on a writer’s retreat? I’ve blogged about them before, but that post took the form of a warning to set reasonable expectations for what you’ll accomplish.

This weekend, while on a retreat, I’ll put on a more positive spin and discuss the benefits. I’ve retreated to an old house in a small rural town with three other writers—the members of my critique group. Here’s a view from the house’s balcony.

The house stands an hour and a half away from my home, where I usually write. The perspective, the atmosphere, the ambiance, is different here. I like to think it sends my mind down different grooves and lets my thoughts wander strange and unexplored byways.

There’s something invigorating about being among other writers, too. When not writing, we sit and talk. It’s fun to learn of their struggles and dreams, to celebrate their victories and commiserate over their defeats.

Non-writers have their own hobbies, of course, and join with like-minded hobbyists for weekends away. But their weekends are not like those of writers. If you could be here with us, you’d see us each in our own corner of the house, quietly busy with laptop or pen. At the moment, we’d rather talk to you, our readers, through our written words than to each other through spoken ones.

Does that sound odd? Pathetic? Rude? Introverted? Boring? Perhaps it would, to non-scribblers. To a writer, it is bliss. Here, for one glorious weekend, the urgencies of life do not interrupt, the excuses for not writing are absent, the schedule collapses to just one task.

There’s something too, about a change in perspective. It unshackles the mind. If you always write in the same chair, the same room, the same desk, is it any surprise that each of your stories seems like the others? Similar characters, similar plots, similar settings? For this reason, while writing at home, I sit in different chairs in different rooms. But this retreat, to a location I’ve never been, grants me a fresh outlook.

Retreats come in different flavors, of course. Some are more like writer workshops, with an expert providing occasional instruction. Some are solitary, where the writer goes unaccompanied to a remote locale. Each of these has pros and cons.

Your retreats need not be frequent, or expensive. My group goes only about every two to three years, and never to the same place twice. We’re mindful of costs and share the monetary burden. For us, the point is not to enjoy breathtaking scenery or to visit nearby attractions. All we need is quiet time. That’s worth emphasizing: Quiet. Time. Need ‘em both.

So, writer, consider a retreat. Withdraw from the daily demands of chores, work, and family. View things from a different angle for awhile. Socialize with other writers who strive, like you, to sharpen their scribbling skills. You might find you benefit as much from it as does—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 18, 2019Permalink