19.33: Workshops and Retreats
Today we’re taking a break from our Close Reading Series to discuss writing workshops and retreats! We dive into how to find and prepare to attend a workshop or a retreat and what to think about for organizing your own.
Thing of the Week: Solo RPGs! (Strider Mode, Star Trek Adventures, Mythic Game Master)
Homework: Go find 3 writing retreats you are interested in attending. 1 retreat-focused, 1 workshop-focused and 1 combination. Then think about what your expectations would be for each one.
Close Reading Series: Texts & Timeline
Next up is Tension! Starting September 1, we’ll be diving into Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark. Please note, this novella uses tools from the horror genre to add tension, and this can be intense for some readers!
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Sandra Tayler, and Sarah Sward. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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Transcript
Key points: Workshop vs. retreat? Workshops have a curriculum, classes or workshopping pieces. Retreats give you time, space, and a nice setting to do some work. Both of them give you a community. Both churn up your head. All together in a rowboat, or in separate canoes but sharing the river? Sometimes it’s filling the well, recharging. Open yourself up to the group activities. What can I learn today? Be honest with the organizers. Prep for it? Set your goals. Take care of your anxieties. Think about going home afterwards. Planning one? Start with the host or organizers. What is the theme, what do they want to accomplish? Manage expectations. Even for retreats, think about the curriculum, what are people going to get out of this. Consider emotional care, both of the participants and the leaders. Teams!
[Transcriptionist’s apology. I’m not sure I identified Sandra Tayler and Sarah Sward correctly from their voices. So I have labeled them with S1, S2, and simply S where I wasn’t sure who it was]
[Season 19, Episode 33]
[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.
[Erin] As you may or may not know, I started my journey to being one of the hosts on Writing Excuses by going on the Writing Excuses cruise. While, to be honest, I can’t promise that for you, I can promise that if you go on the cruise this year, you’ll have a lot of fun. The entire cast of Writing Excuses will be there. We’ll be sailing from Los Angeles on the Navigator of the Seas from September 19th to 27th, and we’re going to stop in three places we’ve never been to before, Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas, and Mazatlán. The cruise has seminars, lectures, exercises, group sessions, group dinners, partying. It’s just everything you want just all in one big package. Relaxation, learning, and writing, all while sailing the Mexican Riviera. For tickets and more information, visit writingexcuses.com/retreats.
[Season 19, Episode 33]
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] Workshops and Retreats.
[Mary Robinette] I’m Mary Robinette.
[Erin] I’m Erin.
[DongWon] And I’m DongWon.
[Mary Robinette] We’re joined by our two guests today, Sandra Tayler and Sarah Sward. We’ve invited them because they’re both extremely experienced with retreats, both as participants, and Sarah is one of the people who puts together our land-based retreats. So, what we wanted to talk to you… We’re going to talk about two things. First, we’re going to talk about the difference between workshops and retreats. Then, the second part of the episode, we’re going to talk about how to put one together, so that if you want to put together a workshop or retreat, you know some of the tools that you need to do that. So, what’s the difference? Workshop, retreat… Erin, you go to these constantly.
[Chuckles]
[Erin] I would say workshops usually have some sort of curriculum. That’s the main thing. Like, you’re actively learning on some level. That’s what I think about. When I go to a workshop, I’m expecting someone to either teach me in a class format or to be workshopping my work with other people. But there is sort of an I’m going to come out of this with more knowledge, whether it’s general knowledge or knowledge about the actual piece that I’m working on. Because both of these can be workshops. Whereas retreats are a little more about being your creative self and sort of letting yourself guide what you’re doing day today, as opposed to letting the workshop guide what you’re doing from moment to moment. Does that make sense?
[DongWon] A retreat is really more about giving a writer or another creative person space and time and usually like a nice setting in which to get some work done for whatever reason. Whether it’s just getting away from your busy life at home, whether it’s getting time away from work. Versus the workshop, which is much more educational in its structure and has much… Well, just much more structure in general.
[Mary Robinette] I think that one of the things about both of them is that you are going to be with a community. It is very rare that you are going to go to a retreat that is by yourself. That’s… While you can do it, it’s more of I’m going to a hotel, but you don’t necessarily call it a retreat. There is a community aspect that I think comes from both of those. Sandra and Sarah, I’m curious, what do you think about when you think about community and that experience at a workshop or retreat?
[S1] I think, for me, at least, that sort of one of the goals, or one of the benefits, of them, is that your, like you said, you can go do something by yourself if you just need to rest and recharge, or you need to focus on your work. But if you’re going to a workshop or retreat, one of the aspects that’s going to be there is other people. So that you can… You can use that to push you forward or help you and encourage you or learn things, if it’s more workshop focused.
[S2] One of the things that I think is really powerful about both workshops and retreats is the way that it churns up whatever’s in your head creatively. It will turn up and create new ideas and new… I mean, if you are the kind of person who squirrels off into multiple projects, it will absolutely do that to you.
[Garbled]
[S2] But sometimes it isn’t about the productivity of what you create during the retreat, it is about how you have shifted everything in your brain, that then settles out and changes what happens in the month after.
[Mary Robinette] Yep.
[Erin] I… Thinking about the difference in community between workshop and retreat, I was suddenly thinking about boating, as you do. So…
[Mary Robinette] Of course. Of course.
[Erin] I was thinking, in a workshop, you’re sort of… It’s like you’re all in a rowboat together rowing. Because ultimately, you’re learn… You’re in the same classes, you’re workshopping each other’s work, there’s a little bit of a, like, we’re all pulling together. Being in a retreat is a little bit like a whole bunch of people in kayaks who are all on the same river. You can see each other and wave, because you may be all working on different projects, but, like, you come together for dinner, or you know that that person’s there. So you’re feeling the creativity. You don’t all have to be going in the same direction. But there’s a feeling that there’s other people out there with you.
[Sarah] Hum, love it. I’ll also say, there also are combinations of the two. I don’t want to get us off, but you can only have one or the other, especially as Writing Excuses. Ours tend to be a combination. Where we try to give that time for the retreat, everyone does their own project, but also have the workshop encouragement time open for those who want to go to that. I think there’s others that do something similar.
[DongWon] Well, one thing that I see sometimes in retreats is group activities that aren’t necessarily about education or moving your main work forward. Right? So, there’s a retreat called Wayward that’s a really beautiful retreat that takes place in British Columbia, where they do a lot of communal art projects over the course of the week, where they sort of share in creative practices and learn from each other in an organic way that’s not pedagogical, that’s not hierarchical. There’s no teacher being, like, here’s how you do things. There’s no one leading a critique group. So, the feeling is more a retreat, even though there’s a lot of shared learning and shared connection around creative process. It’s deliberately multidisciplinary. So people are learning from all kinds of different practices.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think the thing that both have in common is that it’s about filling that well.
[DongWon] Yep.
[Mary Robinette] So when you see these group activities, it’s usually something that is around filling the well, recharging in some way, and giving you a break from the focus, if you’re at a retreat, of working on your piece, that it’s very easy to fatigue yourself and then you don’t get anything done. Or you put so much pressure on yourself that you don’t get anything done.
[S] One of the things that I would advise people who are coming to a retreat, especially if you’re like an introverted writer by any chance, open yourself up to some of these group activities. Even if your brain and maybe social anxiety say, “Nonononono. I don’t want to do that group thing.” The organizers will have planned this on purpose for a reason. They… They may or may not tell you the whole reason of it, and if you are willing to embrace the communal nature, you will gain things that you will be surprised that you gain.
[Mary Robinette] I find that when I go into situations like this, that one of the frames that I get very early was what is one thing that I can learn today? It doesn’t actually have to be out of the curriculum. It can be from conversation with in anyone else, it can be from going for a walk by myself, but just opening myself up to looking for what is the thing I’m learning today helps me be in a more receptive mode as I’m in these places.
[Erin] I love that.
[Laughter] [yeah, yeah]
[S] In my mind, I always think of it as a secondary objective, but the way you said it, it was so much more beautiful.
[Laughter]
[S2] I was sitting here thinking I learned a thing today.
[Laughter]
[Erin] I also think you can be honest with the organizers. Like, something… And we’ll get into how you organize these things, but if you are feeling like I do want to be part of this group, but I’m afraid. Or I feel anxious. Or I’m worried about this group activity because it’s something that I don’t love doing, talking to the folks and saying, “Here’s where I’m coming up on a block,” or “Here’s what I’m trying to get out of this, and I feel like I’m missing what you’re trying to deliver to me,” I think can be really great. Because sometimes, for one thing, it helps to voice what’s going on in your head to another person, and also, they may be able to, within reason, like, adjust what’s going on or explain why something is important or say actually this may not be as much of a lift as you think it is because you’re imagining it to be X but actually it’s Y. Right?
[DongWon] How do you prep for going to a workshop or a retreat? Like, what’s the process for you when you’re planning on going to one? Whether that’s something as simple as packing, or just mental prep for entering that experience?
[Mary Robinette] For me, I try to have some intentionality to it. This is not necessarily the same as I’m going to do 2000 words a day. But that my goal… And I will… Let me back up and say I used to do that. I used to say, have these very rigid metrics of what I was going to try to accomplish. And that what I find is more effective now is to recognize that that rigid metric was in externalization of my actual goal. And that my actual goal was to move forward in my project. And that sometimes that is 2000 words a day, but sometimes that is having time to sit and think about it and getting some clarity. So, again, it’s one thing… So I’ll think three sentences. I set my bar as low as I can going in so that I feel like I have success when I come out. Since one of the primary motives for going to these is to feel recharged, is to fill that well. If I set myself up for failure by having goals that are too lofty, that I’m not going to hit, that’s the opposite of recharging.
[S1] I will say that anytime I go to a workshop or retreat, I overpack.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Chuckles]
[S1] And it’s an anti-anxiety control mechanism for me. I’m an anxious person. I have food restrictions and so I will bring snacks with me. So that I know that no matter what I can go grab a granola bar and I know I’m in control of that granola bar, it is mind whenever I need it. Then I can be less anxious about all the rest of the food, because I know I’m not going to starve, because I have a section of suitcase to make sure that I want. That level of… Depending on what your anxiety is, pack extra clothes in case you’re worried about cold, or pack extra books. I always bring, like, three more books then it’s physically possible for me to read. So I…
[Mary Robinette] I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never done that.
[Laughter] [never]
[S1] But, like recognizing that taking yourself out of the space that you’re used to could be anxious and could turn up emotions that you didn’t realize were there. Again, being willing to roll with that and talk to your organizers and figure out… That’s one of the ways that I prep.
[S2] I… Also, going off of both those ideas, Mary Robinette says well, I try to almost temper my mental expectations, where… Because sometimes you can be, like, “Oh, this is going to be the most amazing experience I’ve ever had,” and it’s not. Probably. I mean, it might be. But there’s only so many most amazing experiences of your life out there. So if you can kind of be like, “This is going to be a good experience. What do I want to get out of this?” And what are, like, some, like, expectations that you can like mentally sort of work through, even if you’re writing them down, just to like… Mentally prep yourself so you’re not, like, disappointed or, if something goes wrong, you’re not immediately like spiraling.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the things that you should be aware of when you go to a workshop or retreat, is that you will have to go home afterwards. Your mood may spiral after that, because you were so productive when you were gone and then it’s hard when you get home. So, being aware that this is a very common experience, I think, will help. We see this all the time, that someone will go to a workshop or go to a retreat, and they come home, and they never write again. So, know that it’s normal for writing to feel hard, because you are coming back. At the retreat, you can experiment with what makes writing easier for you, and see if you can bring that into home in small measures. And, after the break, we’re going to talk about how to thoughtfully design these spaces to make them as productive as possible for the people who attend.
[Dan] All right. Our thing of the week this week is actually a category of things. I want to recommend to you solo RPG’s. Solo role-playing games are becoming a much bigger force in the role-playing game market these days, and there are many, many of them. I can recommend, in particular, Strider Mode, which is from The One Ring Role-Playing Game. Star Trek Adventures has a really incredible one. There are also kind of setting-less solo RPG’s, like, one called Mythic Game Master. What these all have in common is that they are essentially tools in random tables that help you to come up with story ideas on your own. There incredibly useful tools for writers, and I use them in my writing all the time. Mythic Game Master, in particular, there’s dozens, if not hundreds, of tables you can roll on to give ideas for characters, for plots, for twists, for all of these different elements that might pop up that you might need to think of during storytelling. So, check them out.
[Mary Robinette] So, let’s talk about running retreats, which is one of the reasons we’re like, “Sarah, you’re here with us.” Writing Excuses, as you all probably know, runs retreats. We do one on a boat every year, and then we also do land-based retreats as well. All of us individually also have interests in retreats and workshops. They don’t have to be the big formal things that we do. There’s a bunch of different things that you can do. But all of them have some pretty common things that you need in order to be effective. So, let’s talk a little bit about some of the common things that you have at these workshops and retreats that you have to think about before people arrive.
[S] Yes. I mean, obviously, there’s the logistics. But even before you start getting into the logistics over where it’s going to be, where people are going to sleep, what people are going to eat, I will always want to start with who are the event runners? Like, who is the host? Specifically. Like, and if it’s a workshop, who are the instructors? And, if it’s a retreat, even then, you still are going to have the hosts, who were kind of like the brainchild of whatever the theme is, or what they’re hoping to accomplish as the organizer. You always want to start their. Because that is going to inform the location that you want to find, what kind of sleeping arrangements you need to find for the attendees, and how the food is going to be arranged. Because… And that communication needs to be really clear. It can sometimes take a little while, the back-and-forth. But I find, in my role, I’m often just kind of, like, I’m the person who’s, like, let’s all get in a room and then you just talk at me and then I’m taking notes. Then, I’ll like make it happen.
[Mary Robinette] This is very much like what Erin has talked to us about at other points in other episodes about coming up with an artistic statement. Like, what is the purpose of this retreat? It’s one of the questions we ask when we’re creating fiction. Like, what is the merit of this retreat, what is the purpose? Who’s the main character? Who is our audience? What is the goal? If you start there… DongWon, you run retreats…
[DongWon] Yep.
[Mary Robinette] That are not public facing, that are private retreats.
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, having an idea what you’re trying to accomplish is really helpful, because it helps you manage scope creep. It’s very easy to start planning to many activities and too many different things that quickly become overwhelming for people or overwhelming for the organizers, so you do less of a good job making sure everyone’s having a good experience. So I run smaller retreats for clients. Then I do some that are also with just friends. I haven’t done one of the big client ones in a few years, since pre-pandemic, but the thing that I quickly learned from doing those was managing a lot of expectations about what we were going to be doing at the retreat, and also responsibilities. Because these are small things, I’m not running at a big center, it’s either at my house or at a nearby B&B or something like that. Setting expectations about shared responsibilities and tasks. What are we doing about food? Who’s cleaning? Who’s doing these things? Right? So, literally, remember that you’re going to be staying with other people, and that making sure common spaces are clean and usable and fun are all really important things. So, all these kind of expectations are things that you really want to think about to make sure that you, the organizer, don’t become overwhelmed and that everyone is having a good time and one person isn’t doing all the dishes because they’re the one who thinks to do them.
[Erin] I think that’s where vision, like, really comes back into play. Because one of the biggest things I think you’re trying to do is fit the workshop or retreat to the right people.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] For that workshop or retreat. So when you are really clear about your vision, then you can convey that to somebody else, and they can go, like, “Oh, I actually like to live like a rock star every day, never clean, and I need a retreat where it’s just me in a cabin with servants, because, like, that’s what I want.” These are… Look, there’s always a retreat for everybody, like, if you can… If you know what you want, you can usually find someone offering it. But you want to make sure those things line up. Before the break, with Mary Robinette, when you are talking about coming back having been so productive, I sort of often have the opposite experience because I tend to be a workaholic, and so…
[Mary Robinette] I’ve never noticed that about you.
[Laughter]
[Erin] I find that retreats, I’m like, what can I get out of this that I would not get out of my regular life?
[DongWon, Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] For me, it’s like to slow down and have a conversation with someone instead of thinking about the next task. So I look for retreats and workshops that have that built in, and where they’re communicating to me that, like, productivity is not the number one thing here. It’s recharging.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Erin] Whereas somebody else might be like I don’t want all that freedom. I want a little bit more structure. So you need to figure out what you’re trying to give to the participants so that you can find the right ones for you.
[S] With that, that is something that as people are looking for retreats, you can start to tell pretty quickly, like, on the event organizing side. Like, look at their page, send an email. See how quickly they respond. Then you can, like, get an idea of how communicative communications going to go, and then what this retreat is going to be like. And if that fits with what you’re looking for. Then, on the organizers side, that I may… I like over communication as on a personal level, which I think that is why I have heard pretty consistently I’m very good at communicating to attendees and the other hosts. I have to tone it down…
[Laughter]
[S] When I send it out. Which I have learned over many years of trying… Of, okay, I need to tone this back and not send all of it in one communication. Because the people who don’t like over communication will miss the important things. So you try to pick like one or two really important things, and then, if you have a couple other things, that if the people who don’t care they can skip it. Then, the more anxious or people who want all of it, they get all of it.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] I think one of the things about this, this communication, is this intentionality of what is the experience that I want to create for someone. So, even when you’re doing a retreat, one of the things that I think about is, for the lack of a better word, curriculum. I think about that before I think about the schedule. Because the schedule serves the curriculum. The curriculum is what are we getting out of this. If this is a recharge thing, like, if I’ve got people coming to Chattanooga, are we going to… Is this one of the ones where we’re going to go see Rock City? Does that… What piece of the curriculum is that serving? I sit… Okay, this is really weird, or is that not serving it? So I will often think about curriculum, even if we are not… Even if it’s not a class based workshop.
[Erin] I love that expansive thought about what curriculum is. Because a lot of the retreats that I go to our… Don’t have a lot of workshop time. They’re very retreaty. But there’s the everyone gathers together for dinner…
[DongWon] Yes.
[Erin] Is something that’s really big at a lot of the retreats that I go to, and it’s because they’re all about hospitality. There are a few that I’ve been to where they’re like we’re all about making sure that you are having this great experience with each other. So our curriculum is a shared meal.
[DongWon, Mary Robinette] Yep.
[Erin] You know what I mean. It doesn’t just have to be a learning experience.
[DongWon] A lot of the ones that I do we’ll end up all just sitting in one room where we work, rather than going into separate spaces. I know many places will do that, but for ones that are more about close friends working together, will all be in one space and what’s delightful about that is someone will be like, “Hey, I’m stuck on this thing. Can I talk it through with somebody?” Either those two will go off or it will just become a group brainstorming conversation. I think that’s really fun to see other people’s process, share ideas and go back and forth. A lot of times, if I’m hanging out with clients, sometimes they will be directly grabbing me and being like, “Hey. I’m thinking of this idea.” Then we have, like, a mini strategy conversation about where we’re going from here in a really fun ad hoc way so, there’s lots of different ways to structure that, whether your being working independently or you’re really sharing that learning and knowledge.
[Mary Robinette] This is getting to something else that I wanted to talk to… Talk about, is that you… I think that when you’re designing one of these, that you should also be thinking about the emotional care…
[DongWon] Yes.
[Mary Robinette] Of your… Of the people, your attendees, and how you’re going to be taking care of them.
[S] Absolutely. It is important to realize that when your attendees have packed their bags, they have also brought their emotional baggage. Whatever emotional baggage that they have around being social, around writing, about creating, about whatever. They brought that with them, whether or not they meant to. For some people… I mean, my very first retreat experience was almost like one long panic attack the whole time. Because…
[DongWon] Sounds so relaxing.
[Laughter]
[S] It was an experience.
[Chuckles, hoho]
[S] That I’m incredibly grateful for. Because… Again, when I was talking about earlier, it’s about that unpacking when you get home. It helped me see a dozen ways that I had bad thinking going on. It helped me… It was hugely therapeutic in one of those very unpleasant we did physical therapy today kinds of ways.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[S] I bring that up in this context because some of your attendees may have that experience. They may get there and dive into deep depression about themselves, their lives, their writing, their whatever. Building some kind of safety net around that in some kind of way so that you don’t get dragged down. Because it is so easy when someone has dived deep into depression… It’s the you don’t jump in the water with a drowning person. Yeah. You have to have plans. Yeah. I think, going along, I think that’s why a team is so important to carry these, even for smaller ones. Just having one other person to tagteam off of. But for larger ones, you definitely need a team. Because, I can be really good in one-on-one settings, but being like caregiver, like, immediately noticing if other people are emotionally in distress is not one of my, like, highest, like, skills. So having someone else there that is better at that is, like, really nice. Because, like, that’s their strength and then, if they need me to tag in, they can let me know.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. That’s something that we’ve found with Writing Excuses is that having that range of people who can play two different strengths, recognizing what needs to be fulfilled. One of the things that we’ve also found is that transparency is super important. There is a big difference on Writing Excuses between when we started doing it in the way we do it now. That people would be af… Would be having these experiences and they would not share it because they didn’t want to rock the boat. That allowed them to get way deeper down the spiral. But now that we’re much deeper into our… We’re… This is going to be our…
[Sarah] 10 years.
[Mary Robinette] At least, we’ve done them for over a decade…
[Sarah] 10 years.
[Mary Robinette] Over a decade. At the beginning, we have a realistic conversation with all of our attendees and say, “If you’re having a problem, let us know. Let us know early before it becomes something that stops you.” And that often, just having that release valve is enough. This is one of the reasons that having dinners is so important so that people can just let steam out.
[Erin] I will also say that have a conversation with yourself as a planner.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] You are also there. I think it can be really easy, as somebody who’s done a lot of event planning in the past, to get in a mode sometimes when you’re running something where you’re just kind of doing tasks, making sure everyone is okay, you’re very focused on the external. Then it ends, and you are there with yourself and you can crash pretty hard.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] As a planner, just from (a) exhaustion, and… Just, even if you’re having a great time, there’s a certain amount of awareness that you have to have that you don’t normally have in your life.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] It’s sort of like the experience people had when they used Zoom for the first time during the pandemic…
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] And could see their own faces. It’s a little bit of that.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Because you look a little differently and you feel and you move through the world a little differently. Being ready for that and maybe building in some down time afterwards to, like, give yourself time to just play mobile games if you’re me is a great way to ensure that you don’t burn yourself out as a planner.
[S] Exactly. Also, I will just say, if you’re planning a retreat, don’t think that… I mean, you can kind of participate with the community aspect and talking with people, but you are not going to be able to do your own work.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] It… With large ones, no. With small group ones, you can, but it involves carefully curating who’s coming.
[S] Yes.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Mary Robinette] Yes. And clear conversation with them ahead of time. There are people that I would 100 percent invite on a Writing Excuses one, but I would never invite to a personal one.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Even though I am friends with them. Because I know that it would not be a restful experience for me. It’s not… It has nothing to do with that person’s value. It has everything to do with my expectations of what I want to accomplish.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] So if I’m doing something where I’m doing a small group thing where I… I need people to come to my house to body model, so that I will get work done, it’s like that person is the wrong person for that. I hope that we’ve given you a whole bunch of different things to think about. It is time for us to wrap up and we have a little bit of homework for you.
[S] What I want you to do is go and find three retreats. And not… Well, find a retreat, find a workshop, find a combination, find three things, and then think about those expectations we were talking about, and what your expectations would be for each one, and then, if you’re interested in going. And maybe check one out.
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You’re out of excuses. Now go to a retreat.