Audience of One Writers Retreat

As a late-comer to the wonderful(ly frustrating) world of writing, I had much to learn.

OK, truth be told, I still have much to learn. But that's another story for another time.

Like many writers at the beginning, I believed my story and my voice were worthy of being heard, that simply jotting down my brilliant insights and clever bon mots would result in droves of fawning readers, agents, and publishers beating a path to my door, demanding the I share more unfiltered thoughts so they could put them before the word-buying public where we would all get rich and famous.

With apologies to Stephen Sondheim, a funny thing happened on the way to the fortune...

I discovered that the writers I loved who made things seem so easy were liars. The finished product that I held in my hands was the result of months (and in some cases, years) of hard work, pain, sacrifice, and editing, editing, editing.

They only made it look easy because they were really, really good at their craft.

And I discovered that I kind of sucked at mine.

So in an effort to suck less, I began exploring how the good ones got good. The formula, apparently, was quite straightforward:
  1. Write.
  2. Don't suck at writing.
  3. Edit.
  4. Don't suck at editing.
  5. Repeat ad nauseam.
It all seems so simple...

So in order to plot my own course, I followed good writers around (virtually and literally, though I've so far dodged any restraining orders), picking their brains whenever possible. Writers like Tim Dorsey, John Lescroart, Perri (Mary and Pam) O'Shaughnessy, and Joshilyn Jackson were all gracious and generous enough to share their experience and practices with me.

And as a result, today I suck just a little bit less than before.

I'm in the midst of a collaborative project with a dear friend of mine with whom I'd wanted to work for years. What started out as a twisted response to an email then morphed into a challenge to make each other laugh (and/or cringe, apparently). We exchanged "chronicles" which soon became chapters in what will be our first book together.

We set a couple rules for our endeavor. First we determined that we would simply take the other's latest work and build upon it. Sort of an improvisational exquisite corpse. "Yes and..." became the only real theme of the story.

And our only real goal was to entertain the other. We were truly writing for an audience of one.

We also established a rule that we would use footnotes. Lots and lots of footnotes. No particular reason why. It's our goddam book and if we want footnotes, we'll have footnotes.

When we got to about forty pages, we decided the story was worth pursuing. When we got to fifty, we decided that Radley, Sloe, Karm, Lizza, Ebay, and most of all, Shameus deserved a world in which they could live.

We decided it was time for a writers' retreat.

I love the definitions of retreat offered by those rascals Merriam and Webster. All seemed to fit our intention:

  • An act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable: Nothing is more dangerous or disagreeable to a writer than the banality of day-to-day work life. So we will retreat from that.
  • The process of receding from a position or state attained: Both of us have attained a modicum of success in our professional lives (i.e., we're both still drawing a paycheck), positions from which we will recede for a few days.
  • A place of privacy or safety: We found a place far from the madding (and maddening) crowd where we'll be safe to follow the gang down whichever rabbit hole they descend.
  • A period of group withdrawal for prayer, medication, study, or instruction under a director: Well, we won't really have a director but we do have direction.

So we created the Audience of One Writers' Retreat. We rented a cabin halfway between our respective homes in Pace, Florida (him) and Jacksonville, Florida (me). And lest this become simply an opportunity to fish, eat badly, and try to out-fart one another, we established some specific goals, along with a plan to meet them.

Our primary objective is to feed the beast that is the story. We are there to serve it. We have characters (and oh boy, are they characters!) and a rough idea of the challenges they face. But we will spend the weekend doing the dirty work of outlining the story to make sure they actually end up somewhere entertaining.

We also established a detailed schedule. It will not be all sitting in front of each other, dueling laptops at the ready. We've built time into the long weekend to feed the creativity that fueled this project from the beginning. We'll fish and eat and nap and, yes, probably try to out-fart each other. After all, we're writers not statesmen. Writers write. And sometimes they try to out-fart each other.

So I'll let you know how it goes. Time will ultimately determine if carving this time we made in the midst of our busy lives results in a finished product but we'll know after this weekend if we spent our time well, investing wisely in our art.

And who knows? If all goes well and our weekend is productive, we may even open up the Audience of One Writers' Retreat to others going forward, to share our approach.

But don't worry. Any other writers we invite won't need to participate in any fart competitions.

Unless, you know, you really want to.


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