Pro Tip #3 for Taking Writers on Retreat
Part 2 of Tip 3: The solution: Prerequisites and the personal touch, or what I do now that has made a world of difference to everyone’s retreat experience, including mine.
Welcome to Part 2 of Pro Tip #3 in my series of articles about designing unforgettable, amazingly magical, and potentially life changing retreats for writers.
I’ve learned a lot over the years about herding cats, writers, and introverts, and I feel like it’s time to share.
I have added two prerequisites to newbie retreater prescreening, one social and the other personal. Already, in 2023, having these prerequisites in place has been a banging success. We’ve had amazing retreats this year, with every single person achieving more than they expected and getting incredible results.
The list of incredible results includes breaking through writers block, falling back in love with WIPs, finding new direction, reclaiming energy and excitement, rekindling creativity, shrugging off overwhelm, achieving higher word counts than ever before, easing into flow at a much more rapid rate, finally choosing an ending, and finally making a beginning — not to mention the deep, lasting connections with other writers.
One of the prerequisites I have put in place for newbie retreaters is social and the other is personal.
But first!
Last week’s journaling prompts:
Next week’s journaling prompts are on the other side of the paywall with more about the incredibly powerful ways today’s writers used their Daily Pages.
#142 - Mind and Withdraw
#143 - Quick and Opening
#144 - Regular and Drawn
#145 - Embody and Neither
#146 - Free and Contrary
#147 - Refine and Balance
TODAY #148 - Skint and Unfinished
The most interesting word-pairing for me this week has very cool timing, considering what we’ve been talking about in the Live & Thrive pilot workshop: #147 - Refine and Balance.
Coincidentally, we happen to have someone in the Live & Thrive workshop right now who has figured out that she needs to refine what balance means to her in her new retirement situation.
She has to look at what she’s balancing first - for example, does she want to balance playtime and family time, or does she want to balance downtime and active time, or does she want to balance two other parts of her life, and why?
In order for her to refine her sense of balance in her life, she has to look at what she really, really wants, as well as what she thinks she wants that may be a part of the past or maybe something in the future, and then refining from there what it is right now that represents balance, or feels like balance, to her.
You can do this as well. It’s a process, but you got this.
Keep scrolling for more about prerequisites and the list of journaling prompts coming up this week.
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