Ever though what happens when authors get uninterrupted time together?

Well, I am fresh out of a writing retreat where I spent a long weekend with nine other authors doing what authors do, writing, talking, eating and drinking wine… not always in that order.

Our accommodation, a caravan in a holiday park near the seaside town of Hastings in the South of England, was modest but very comfortable. The food was homemade and the company was perfect.

Here are some of my personal reflections from the weekend that I think also apply to other areas of life.

• Getting away from our creature comforts is very productive. I have a PHD in procrastination, which I put into practice more often than I should. I also work full time so I try to use my days off to write. Somehow I still don’t manage to write as much or gain as much focus on those days as I do when I’m in a caravan in the English countryside.
• It’s important to connect with real people. We spend so much time connecting with people online that sometimes we forget how to do it in real life. Spending time with like-minded people for me is one of the most energising things I can do, especially because in my day job I work mostly at home on my own.
• This is a business too. What a great opportunity to talk to other authors about release strategies, advertising, reading, collaborations and throw out any wild ideas. We never know what we get to take home after one of these retreats.
• I have a tribe. These authors aren’t just colleagues, they’re the people who I feel comfortable asking those questions I wouldn’t ask anyone else. We talk about our challenges, those times when the characters aren’t talking to us, or we’re stuck somewhere in the story plot, but we also talk about our victories and our successes. When I did my first retreat a year ago I was working on my first novel, this year I was editing my third.
• Ants get everywhere. The tagline of the weekend in my caravan was “Bloody ants!” There weren’t enough to cause concern but every time we turned somewhere we’d see one of the buggers.
• Making new friends. I’ve been to three of these retreats and each time there are a few new friends to make. The retreats aren’t exclusive to authors of gay romance. This time we had a good mix of LGBT authors writing in different genres, next time, who knows?

There is a structure to these weekends, or we’d end up just talking, drinking and chilling all weekend long. We always set goals for what we want to achieve over the weekend. Some of us want to get a specific work count, work on a new project, complete an existing one, or in my case, editing. Whatever we decide to do we have our system to make sure we have plenty of quality work time and some quality social time too.

More than working on our writing, these caravan retreats are great opportunities to connect with people and throughout the weekend we had many conversations that, shock horror, weren’t all about Eurovision.

I know I am looking forward to the next one but I hope that sharing my experience has maybe inspired you to find your own way to retreat and do something you love with your own tribe of like-minded people.