Guidelines for Weekend Writing Retreats with Patricia Lee Lewis
What to expect: We meet together at Patchwork Farm for one or both days of the weekend in a group of 6-10 writers. Writers of all levels of experience and of all genres are invited. There are no criteria for acceptance other than a sincere desire and willingness to write. You need bring no manuscripts with you; all writing is done during the retreat.
Schedule: We will start each day at 9:00 a.m. with coffee/tea/juice and muffins, begin writing at 9:30, break for lunch (and perhaps a walk on the trails) around 12:30, and end our afternoon session at about 5:00 o'clock. I will provide coffee/tea/muffins/fruit when you arrive, a lunch of homemade vegetarian soup, baked chicken, salad, bread, fruit and cheese, and a mid-afternoon dessert.
What to bring: Please bring your notebook, pens and socks or slippers for indoors and walking shoes or boots for the trails.
The writing: We will write four or five times during the day in response to exercises I suggest (which you are completely free to ignore!). We are invited to read aloud what we have just written and to respond to each other's work with what is working (what we like, what we remember, what moves us). We will work together to create and maintain a safe, confidential space in which to write whatever comes by following certain guidelines in responding to new writing:
We hold the writing of others in confidence;
We honor the writer by listening carefully;
We treat everything as fiction;
We refer to the narrator/speaker, not to the author, as the voice of the piece;
We remember that while healing often occurs through our writing, this is not a therapy group, and we maintain our focus on the writing;
We concentrate on the writing at hand, not on anecdotes of our similar experiences;
We are free to write what we want; exercises are offered;
We are invited to read;
We respond only with what we like, what stays with us, what moves us-and not, at this stage of vulnerability, with what will make it stronger.
We invite our inner critic to take a walk!
Our writing retreats are designed after the process developed by my mentor, Pat Schneider of Amherst Writers & Artists, to help us find our truest voice; to write from the images, memories and feelings we all carry inside ourselves; and to write with greater confidence and skill. The retreats are a wonderful way to take time out and allow the deeper levels of your own creative self to emerge onto the page. Besides all of this, they are fun. Please be in touch with any questions or concerns. I look forward to writing with you.
