Two weeks ago, I attended my first ever writing retreat aboard a spaceship heading for Jupiter. Well, that was the extended metaphor that our leaders Ralph and Julia came up with to set the stage for our discussions sessions. But the retreat actually took place at a camp in rainy northeastern Pennsylvania, which is somehow farther north than where I live in Connecticut. (Apparently, about a third of Pennsylvania exists at a higher latitude than my 41 degrees. Geography is weird.)
For most of my writing career, I have been entirely solitary. But about two years ago, I accidentally joined a group called the 5am Writers Club. (I say accidentally because I started using the hashtag #5amwritersclub without realizing it was an actual group of people…but they welcomed me in with open arms.) Since joining the club, I’ve participated in regularly scheduled Zoom meetups to talk about the craft and business of writing. I’ve found beta readers and critique partners. And I’ve enjoyed the sense of solidarity knowing that all over the world, other writers are getting up at the same time of as day as I am… simply to write.
Fourteen of us (some from the club, some who knew one of the retreat organizers from her work in North Carolina) descended upon the Poconos on a wet Thursday afternoon. Getting to meet people who I’ve only ever seen in tiny Zoom boxes was the best part of the retreat for me. And apparently, I am way taller than my Zoom box lets on. The second best part was that I wasn’t in charge. I got to be a participant, which is not the norm in my professional life as a pastor. Just getting to be part of the group allowed me to relax in a special way. The camp had no WIFI or cell phone signals. But it did have the paper, pencils, and brains we brought with us, along with our mutual support of one another and our desire to better understand what, how, and why we write.
Over the two full days of the retreat, Ralph and Julia led us through discussions and exercises covering character, plot, theme, voice, and catharsis. In one exercise, I created an intricate grid in my notebook that covered every aspect of my three main characters’ description, motivation, and reasons for being in the story. The exercise helped me realize that two of my characters are in physical danger for the entire book, so their stakes are fairly obvious. The third character is not in danger, quite the opposite actually. She’s in the lap of luxury, so I needed to clarify for myself what her stakes were. Turns out she’s always right about things, so what will happen to her self-image when she finally fails at something?
On Saturday morning, my critique partner and I sat down to “break” her story. (I think that term comes from TV show writing, where the writers figure out what happens between commercial breaks, but I might be making up that etymology.) She has written a lot of elements of her book, some several times over in different versions, but the full arc of the story remained slippery. We spent a delightful hour and a half with a giant sheet of flipchart paper brainstorming how all the elements fit together. This type of outlining is one of my favorite things to do with other writers. I love figuring out story beats, and I think in another life being a staff writer on a TV show could have been my career.
One of the common themes I heard during the retreat was my fellow writers’ struggles with imposter syndrome. Who were they to write books? How could they possibly have anything worthwhile to share with the world? Hearing their struggles made me realize I have the opposite problem. I think I’m a little too comfortable and complacent with my writing. I just, sort of, assume it’s fine and go about my day. I don’t agonize. I don’t really doubt myself. But this lack of self-reflection is just as shackling as imposter syndrome because it keeps me from digging as deeply as I can into my own creativity to find the soul of the story. I think this anti-imposter syndrome comes from two sources. First, I have to write and deliver a sermon every Sunday. I don’t have a lot of time to plumb my depths every week, so I’ve gotten pretty proficient at doing so quickly. Second, I’ve always been a confident (overconfident?) person, so my accuracy in assessing my own competency is…not reliable.
Being with this group of writers helped me clarify this anti-imposter syndrome and begin shaping new patterns to keep it at bay. Unlike a sermon, I can spend as long as I want writing a novel, so there’s no need to short-circuit the discovery process by imposing an artificial deadline. And seeking feedback from trusted sources (like Brenan and Paul, my critique partners) can snap me out of my overconfident laziness and truly elevate my stories.
At the end of the weekend, I told the group this: “Until recently, I never read the author’s acknowledgments in the backs of books. When I did start reading them, I was amazed at how many people they thanked. I couldn’t possibly imagine thanking that many people for their help with my book until coming here to this retreat. Now their are at least thirteen people to put in my acknowledgments.”
Writing seems like a solitary venture. Many things do until you pull back and see all the other people involved in getting you to where you are. Thank you to my fellow writers, and especially to Ralph and Julia for organizing the retreat, for your presence, your enthusiasm, your wisdom, and your humor.
I’ll leave it here today with this question for you to ponder: What is something you do that seems like you do it alone? How are others actually supporting you in that activity and how will you thank them for their support?
Adam Thomas, Author 