by Danyelle Overbo
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Three of the mini-retreaters @ Lit Fest 2013 (left to right: Megan, Lori Ella, and Danyelle)[/caption]
Oh, the glory of the Grand Lake retreat! The fun, the forest, and the creative energy of that one week a year are legendary…and let’s not forget about the booze! What is it about grouping writers of all types together in a cabin in the woods that coaxes the best work out of them? Who could resist the call of the wild and workshops to give you that yearly boost of writerly productivity? Since most of us cannot always make it to this creativity extravaganza, our writing group decided to do a mini-Grand Lake retreat to attempt to capture some of the magic. And you know what? Our experiment succeeded!
The four of us met at the Lighthouse Lit Fest, another event that gathers writers together in a warm atmosphere of support and good times. When it ended, we didn’t want to lose the writing momentum we’d gained during Lit Fest, and so we decided to meet once a week to work and share our struggles and successes. Once we heard about all the wonderful goings-on at Grand Lake, we put our heads together and came up with a brilliant plan. The four of us would get together at my house for 24 hours straight of writing – our own sprint of creativity madness.
In order to prepare, we divvied up the meal responsibilities. Each of us would cover one of the meals: we had two lunches, one dinner, and one breakfast. Our schedule was noon on Saturday to noon on Sunday, stopping only when we passed out at night and immediately starting again in the morning. Then we put together a schedule we more or less followed during our time together. We left room for small breaks during meals, writing exercises to keep our juices flowing, and readings to share what we’d accomplished as the hours ticked by. Mostly, though, we wrote our brains out!
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The elusive fourth member of the post Lit Fest posse, Ted (at Poker Night 2013).[/caption]
The weather was beautiful, the company was fantastic, and the food was great. We stocked drinks and snacks, had fish curry for dinner, and crème brule French toast in the morning out on the deck. We wrote poetry, revised sections of novels, accumulated new pages, and got back on track on our old pages. By the end, we were exhausted, but happy. Our mini-Grand Lake was a great success. I highly encourage other writing groups out there to give it a go! You’ll be surprised at how motivating it can be to get trapped together somewhere nice with no distractions and the sound of your clicking keyboards carrying you through the night.
Thanks to my writing friends for making it happen: Megan Hickey, Ted McCombs, and Lori Ella Miller. We rock!
