My retreat is over and I’m at home again, and luckily my journey did not get impacted by Storm Austin, although my train from Chester was heaving because other trains were cancelled and people needed to re-route via Liverpool. Our neighbour’s whomping willow is doing a whirling dervish dance, our swamp cypress is flinging off its suddenly orange fronds, and the rain is lashing against the window.
It has been quite wet all week, although not with this kind of force. Perhaps, for a writing retreat that is the best kind of weather. The other ‘plus’ point is that Corwen, where the Bron Y Graig guesthouse sits, is not the most exciting town around. I was, after all, there to write.
I have always had a yearning to go on a writing retreat. But the idea of it has also felt like an enormous self-indulgence. Partly this was down to a lack of self-belief that I could be a writer, and partly it was because the advertised retreats that I’d seen, when I’d had a sneaky peak, had been really expensive.
Yes, it would be incredible to rock up at a chateau in Bordeaux, or a villa in Florence, but even if I could afford it, would I want to stay indoors writing in those magical sounding places? Wet Wales sounds more conducive for an intense period of grind.
‘A Place To Write’ at Bron Y Graig, run by Nic and Wendy Brownlie, is in Denbighshire, North Wales. I saw it during another random interweb search in September, and I thought it would be a great idea to use it as a kick-starter for my second book. It was close and it was very reasonably priced given that I had my own ensuite room and had all my meals included.
Anybody can write one book, but could I do it again? I wasn’t sure. I was excited to put ‘Death On All Hallows’ Eve’ out into the world. I’m proud of getting it done, but now I wanted to see if I could repeat the effort and hopefully make it even better than the last.
I was beyond excited to go, but also nervous as hell. What would everybody else think of me? A self-published newbie. What I found was the widest array of people you can get with a group of six. A mother and daughter from Brussels but who were originally Danish. The mother was an interpreter who had begun writing novels in her spare time and the daughter was in theatre. A philosopher from America who was exploring some intense moments in her past for a possible memoir. A Canadian (originally Australian) who was writing his first novel, and a woman from Norfolk who was on her umpteenth children’s book.
This was an unstructured week. I had deliberately chosen an unstructured week because it was cheaper and I knew what I wanted to try and do. Nic, our main host, was very generous with his time, however, giving some one-to-one feedback sessions to anybody who felt they needed it.
Generous is definitely a word I would attribute to Nic, as well as enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable. The house is an old, creaky and wonderfully comfortable and relaxing. The days were punctuated by meal times and tea (or coffee) and biscuit times, and there is a little bell when those breaks happened to pull you out of your writing fervour if you should be in one.
Interestingly, I always used to be ready just a couple of minutes ahead. Am I led by my stomach perhaps? Of course, aside from the main meals, you were free to forgo the breaks, but they felt just the right periods of time to come away from my laptop and change my scenery, and chat to people.
I couldn’t believe that all of the others had come from so far away to this little place, and it just so happened to be on my doorstep. Some of the other residents for the week had been on other writing holidays/retreats in this country and abroad, but this was everybody’s first time here. I didn’t know what to expect, but I loved what I got. The more experienced writers were also ebullient with their praise.
It wasn’t all work. There was a sports centre, and I did manage one swim. And I went on a couple of walks, with one lead by Nic up to the top of nearby Caer Drewyn on the one day when the sun came out.
But did I actually get any work done?
I had looked at this place a few months ago, thinking that I might use it to edit my second book. By the time the week came about, not a word of my second book had been written for me to edit. What I had done, however, is have a few chapter headings, like the titular descriptions that are in my first book, and I was beginning to use these as a way to mark a few ideas of how the story might play out.
This week I managed to get something written for the first six chapters. So about seven thousand words or so. I suspect that many of these words will go into the bin when I begin editing but that’s fine. I have marked the empty page and have proved to myself that I can do it again.
Would I recommend Nic and Wendy’s ‘A Place To Write’? With no hesitation. I may book it again for when I’m ready to edit. Alongside the unstructured weeks they have structured weeks which include workshops, and a one-to-one with an editor. They also, three times a year, have Shakespeare weeks, and I am already persuading Annie to come with me for one of those next year.
She said I came back bursting with enthusiasm and ideas, and I know that I can’t stop smiling. I’m excited to keep the momentum going now that I’ve set the ball rolling again, and I’m soooo happy to have discovered this little oasis of a place so close to me.
