This past weekend, I went to Asheville, NC for my 3-day writing retreat. It went…not how I expected. That’s kind of an odd thing to say, because I didn’t really know what I expected, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it. The one thing completely positive thing I will say is that Asheville never disappoints me. I got to drive through my old campus and by my old apartment, saw a lot of things that haven’t changed in 25+ years, and quite a few things that had. When I was able to go out, the food was magnificent. Big shout to Hillman Beer for one of the best veggie burgers I’ve ever eaten.
For a start, I guess I was either not fully over my recent cold or it turned into a sinus infection of some sort. I spent a lot of the time pretty miserable, coughing and blowing my nose, and feeling really guilty about going out in this day and age. On Monday, I briefly even considered cutting the trip short. It was that bad. This really curtailed my ability to focus on anything of note. I’ve since been to the doctor and got some additional medicine.
Then there was the pressure, and I’m not talking about in my sinuses. I was extremely careful to not set any arbitrary deadlines, word counts, or any benchmarks at all. I wanted things to flow freely without expectation and be okay with it if I spent more of my time out in the city. The problem was, even without benchmarks, I expected myself to be working all the time. If I wasn’t eating or sleeping, I was supposed to be at my computer banging something out. I actually didn’t fail at this (more on that later), but it really took the fun, relaxation, and spontaneity out of things. I felt guilty for even wanting to go out to dinner, since I had a kitchen and had started the trip with grocery shopping. I guess, subconsciously, I thought I was just there to work and I had to produce something to prove it was worth everyone allowing me to do it.
Story-wise, I probably wrote less than 200 words for the whole weekend. I got on a roll with the OneNote dictation feature and, when I wasn’t coughing, was able to talk though some important story points, questions to answer, and some overall plotting. When I’m feeling a little better, I want to try to collate that into something more sensible and see where it all takes me. This was actually the highlight of the entire trip: wandering around my rented apartment talking to myself for hours, and then getting to read it all back.
Despite that, the whole weekend just felt off. Wrong, somehow. Maybe it’s because I went alone. Maybe it’s because of where I went. Maybe it was the timing (Sunday was the big Mardi Gras parade downtown, so I avoided the whole area). I’m sure a big part of it was feeling so poorly also, but getting home yesterday, I really had to wonder if it was worth it. I believe my conclusion is that it wasn’t.
Now, for some more positive takeaways and what I learned from them:
- I work really well at home. Distractions and everything. In fact, I think the distractions help me not hyperfocus on it and get mad at myself. Being able to walk away and play Nintendo Switch or go for a walk in familiar surroundings is a good thing for me.
- Dictation is a game changer. My brain and my mouth work faster than either writing or typing do, so I can get voluminous thoughts out “on paper” really fast with this. Until I can distill it down to the relevant points, though, this is more of a maybe good.
- I’ve been married with a family for long enough that time completely alone is weird and wrong. The whole time I was there, a thought kept crossing my mind: “What good is being in your favorite place if you can’t share it with anyone?” Maybe I would do better at a collective retreat?
At any rate, I think this was my first and only writing retreat. Whether the fates lined up against me or I just did it wrong somehow, I’m not eager to repeat this past weekend. I’m always eager, however, to get back to Asheville anytime I can.
