One year and six months – that’s how long I had been attending the bi-monthly local critique group before we held our first retreat for children’s book writers. As I approached the huge house on the coast of Maine, I wondered…Would I like the writing retreat? Would we all get along? Well, as it turned out, the retreat was everything I had hoped it would be and more.
We began.
After a brief welcome session, we began with a workshop on goal-setting. I had volunteered to lead this workshop, and I used Lisa Jacobs’ YOUR BEST YEAR, 2018 as a guideline. Discussions centered around how we had been our own worst enemies concerning our writing for the previous year, and how we planned to overcome these obstacles for 2019. One of the things I realized was that I needed to get beyond the negative self-talk I sometimes have in my mind (“You’re not a good writer,” “Why bother submitting, you’ll only get rejected,” etc.).
Query Letter Workshop
Friday afternoon consisted of our first manuscript critique session, query letter critiques, and discussion about our soon-to-be-launched group blog. The query-writing workshop really stuck with me. One thing I learned was that every sentence in a query should be unique to the writer’s story or to the writer herself. I was happy to learn something new, especially as I was also leading the query workshop. (This highlights the importance of getting together with like-minded writers from time to time!) I had prepared by summarizing scores of articles I had read online about query writing, but do you know what? We wanted to concentrate whole-heartedly on critiquing each other’s queries, so I saved my notes for a future blog post instead. (I had thought three days was plenty of time for a retreat, but we didn’t get to do everything on our carefully planned outline!)
A chef?!
After breakfast on Saturday morning (Did I mention one of our critique partners is a chef?!) we did a creative writing prompts exercise focused on character study. Next, we had two hours of free write time, which I used to fine-tune my query letter. The morning concluded with a lecture on revision, based on information from Jim Averback and the Storyteller Academy. This lecture highlighted one of the main problems I have in writing picture book middles: writing action that is both escalating and cause-and-effect. I can’t wait to apply all of the helpful tid-bits I learned to my manuscripts!
Tons of Fun
After lunch, we took our group photo for our upcoming blog – we had tons of fun, because we were outside in the snow. Then we spent the rest of Saturday afternoon critiquing manuscripts and planning how we want to structure our four hours per month of in-person time for the rest of 2019. We discovered that receiving critiques was a priority for everyone, as was the business of working on our group blog, but we decided to table exploring the craft of writing until our blog gets going. (We’ll all be attending at least one SCBWI conference this year.)
Focused
Sunday, we focused on three things: writing and critiquing some of the group posts for our blog, how to better communicate with each other (think: beyond email), and a retreat reflection. The retreat reflection was especially enlightening for me. My biggest take-away message from the retreat was: don’t be afraid because fear paralyzes creativity. I had shared one of my WIPs with the group, having gone back and forth with whether or not to do so. Drafting it had been so much fun, and yet, I was afraid… probably afraid of rejection. But the thing is, if something causes me joy to write, then it is worth sharing, period. And everyone encouraged me to keep working on this special WIP and to eventually submit it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I highly recommend the DIY writing retreat. For less than $300.00, I came away with invaluable information, advice, and deepened friendships. I am grateful to have met these six fabulous ladies. I am terribly fearful of our group fizzling out, but I don’t think that will happen because we are all driven by a sincere desire (maybe even something more than ‘desire’) to be published children’s book authors. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we are enjoying how we have shared our writing journey together thus far, and that we look forward to all of our future interactions. Oh yes, and there will be many more writing retreats in the years to come!
