My First Writer’s Retreat Results
Hello Fellow Writers, Bookworms, and Travelers,
Apologies for the delay in summing up my writer’s retreat journey. Once I got back to work on Friday there was a trainwreck waiting for me, so I’ve been scrambling to get up to date with blog posts.
That being said, I’m happy it’s Saturday and excited to share my experience on my first writer’s retreat that took place in Branson, Missouri.
So first things first, I chose Branson because it was a remote location, more of a small town with plenty of wide open spaces for me to relax in.
I booked an Airbnb, a cabin house of sorts, and really enjoyed the space.
This Airbnb was set in a humongous gated community with tons of great nature all around me. Unfortunately it was extremely frigid the entire time, so I spent most of my time inside, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
All right, so back to my writing. I didn’t want to stress myself out by setting a word goal. I simply wanted to try out this whole writer’s retreat thing and see if it was for me.
Before I set out on my writer’s retreat, I had two and a half chapters of my sequel plotted out enough to where I would be able to hit the ground running, and I’m happy to say I did just that!
In total, I wrote 4,616 words (about 18 and a half pages) in just three days. This included my current chapters 17 and 18, as well as the beginning to chapter 19. Again, I didn’t want to stress myself out with a goal, and I ended up writing to the point where I had things plotted out clearly.
Next time around, I’ll definitely have more writing plotted out for myself, and I’ll definitely have a goal somewhere between 5k and 10k words to make sure the money spent travelling is well worth it. I would also like to be gone for a full five days next time around. Still, I think this was a really successful trip. I was able to get a great writing boost and jump ahead a few chapters in such a short time.
I also took a lot of time to relax and recharge my batteries, that was paramount.
I didn’t see very many sights in Branson (that wasn’t a big goal of mine either), but I did enjoy the Talking Rocks Cavern and even got a short story idea out of my experience.
In the end, I’ve decided to make a writer’s retreat a yearly occurrence and look forward to travelling to more local towns in the future. Branson is a great remote place to do that, and I’m super fortunate to have had this experience!
Wrap-up
All right, that’s it for my writer’s retreat experience. How about you? Have you ever been on a writer’s retreat? Where did you go and what was your experience? Tell me all about it!
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I have to say I’m a little envious. I’ve always wanted to go on a writer’s retreat all alone for a weekend, but it’s never happened. I have been a mom, and a homeschool mom at that, since I’ve been a serious writer, and my husband doesn’t understand why I feel a need to go away alone for a weekend. Congratulations on the amount of writing you accomplished on your retreat! I know that’s a good feeling as it can be difficult in your “normal life” to complete a decent amount of writing in a short amount of time.
I’m not much of a horror or paranormal reader, but I like your blog and your weekly writer updates and the WWW Wednesday posts.
You know, I think that’s what made me decide to go on a writer’s retreat. Seeing others doing it.
I have to say, it’s definitely worth the money, even if it’s just a local drive for a weekend away. Branson was a really good economical choice for me. Next time I may choose something even a little bit closer.
Thanks so much, I really did finish the work that I set up for myself on the trip, so I count that as a success.
No worries, it was just a freak accident that I started writing horror. I look forward to moving on to my urban fantasy series once I’m done with this horror duology. And from there maybe fantasy and scifi, maybe some mystery too.