The Creative Power of Retreat

We set out in the dark, footsteps echoing on the cobbles. At first, all we’re aware of is the swish of brooms, water lapping over canal steps, the clatter of chairs and the smell of coffee brewing. But then we reach Accademia.

We climb to the highest point of the bridge, gazing east over the Grand Canal, just as the sun bursts over the sweep of water, turning the vaporetti golden and gilding the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. We’re in Venice. When Peter Benchley first visited Venice, he wrote to his editor at the New Yorker: “Streets full of water. Please advise”.

Venice has both fascinated and repelled writers for centuries and continues to serve as inspiration – both by those who find it magical and those determined to view it in a curmudgeonly light. Yet even they seem unable to escape the romance of the place.

That was why we, at All About Writing, were drawn to hold our annual writers’ retreat here. Forget the tourists. It takes five minutes to escape them. We spirit our writers into another age: a sixteenth century palazzo in Dorsoduro, where ordinary Venetians live and work.

There’s a peculiar silence here. At first, it’s hard to place what is so different, and then it hits you. No cars, no motorbikes. No hooting or alarms. No idling engines. Just the sounds of another era. After a day or two you notice something else – a more precious quiet, the creative calming of one’s inner clamour.

Yet we didn’t come to Venice only to be enchanted, but to focus on our writing. There are those who scoff at the idea of travelling halfway across the globe to do something you could probably achieve at your own dining-room table. And yet, we attract writers from the UK, America, Canada, and South Africa – some of them time and time again. They’re not dilettantes. We draw participants who are serious about their writing, and others just itching to begin.

I swear by retreats. I’ve seen how they work. I’m not sure how I’d have worked my way into my PhD dissertation – focused on the use of childhood in literature – had I not written much of my first chapter on an academic retreat. I was inspired by my discussions with our ‘reader’, but also by the creative industry around me. It infected me, particularly as I was writing in a bubble, away from all the duties that ordinary life thrusts upon us.

We all write alone, certainly, retreat or not. But when the writing day is done, we can share the sense of triumph that comes from a good burst of creativity, with those who understand that exact sense of euphoria. We can learn from our fellows, no matter how experienced a writer we happen to be; we can be inspired by their projects, or their writing habits.

Get stuck and we can go for a walk. But be sure to carry a notebook, because the ideas will rush in, just as we cross that first bridge and wander into San Pantalon. Gaze upward at the world’s largest canvas painting, which makes it seem that the ceiling is opening directly into the heavens. Be inspired.

I have spent the last three days preparing and, tomorrow, our participants will arrive. Each will receive the gift of one-on-one attention every day. They can use our time to discuss, brainstorm, get feedback … whatever they need.

I know, not everyone can stretch to our Venice retreat but, if you are able to share and discuss your work with a writing community, that’s a bonus. It really does help, and it makes you realise there are others who experience just that feeling of being stuck, or hopelessness somewhere in the middle, or the joy of finding your way through a problem.

If you’re able to remove yourself from the clamour of everyday life, that’s first prize. But even if you can’t, pretend. Ring-fence your writing time, lie if necessary, and create your own small retreat for a week, or just a morning.

If you are able to join us, one year in the future, I can promise you’ll never forget it. This year, we are expecting historical novels, literary novels, romances, short stories, narrative non-fiction … and I know that, as I do every year, I will see how the sheer power of that creative energy inspires and spurs each person to produce.

For the writers who join us in Venice, the retreat offers something rare and essential: the opportunity to escape the din and demands of our lives for an environment that inspires and encourages creativity.

What is being celebrated, above all, is the most precious aspect of us all – the creative self – however each person chooses to enrich it. We do so among like-minded souls who long for something more – that elusive spirit of imagination which takes us beyond the everyday, to the sublime.

Happy writing

Jo-Anne