Winterfire

I made it home from the retreat yesterday, although it was a close thing. There was a brutal wind, with snow on top of it, making the driving treacherous. One of the major highways was closed both ways due to accidents, and I only narrowly avoided being stuck waiting for an accident to be cleared away from the route I took. A second accident I was able to turn around from and take an alternate route.

But enough about that. Let’s talk about the retreat itself. The Winterfire Writing Retreat was held at the Loretto Maryholm Spirituality Centre, which is owned and administered by the Loretto Sisters of The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This probably accounted for the single beds with their super firm mattresses.

My friend and I got to the retreat on Friday with enough time to settle in, unpack, and relax a bit. Supper was a light buffet of seriously healthy food like avocado, shredded carrots, diced cucumber, couscous, chick peas – you get the idea – that you could combine in any way you saw fit. This was followed by the first workshop.

When I think of workshops, I think of everyone working at a single task. The Winterfire workshops were a little different in that we worked at several different things. For instance, there was a tiny card at each place with a single word written on it. We were to begin with the phrase, “I want to have” and write a short piece incorporating that word. The writing was timed, and after we were done we shared what we’d written before moving on to the next task. We’d usually do three or four of these little prompts (all different) before the workshop was done.

Saturday we did a prompt workshop as a group, then broke into two groups for more prompt writing. But it was after lunch that things got really interesting. We did something called “silent writing” for something like three hours. Now silent writing doesn’t just mean writing quietly, it means you don’t smile at anyone, don’t talk, don’t even acknowledge another person – not even to offer them a cup of coffee.

I was kind of skeptical of what this would accomplish, but I gotta tell you. I went into the silent writing time feeling tired and dragged out, but by the time it was done I felt rejuvenated. It was really weird, and really productive.

I got a lot of writing done at the retreat, most of it from prompts. And I completed two short stories. The other participants were a varied group, ranging from a young screen writer to a research doctor who was working on her memoir, with several different genres in between.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were divided into teams to make lunches and dinners and the purpose was two-fold. The first was to provide delicious, home-cooked meals, which were not included in booking the house, and the other was to allow us to get to know each other better through a shared task. Remember, there were 15 of us and we’d never met each other before.

Would I do it again? Definitely. Being unplugged for the weekend was in no way a hardship. I got a lot of writing done and met some very interesting women – everyone seemed to have a story.

But next time I’m getting a room to myself.