Carved from the Day

Lessons from the Long Haul

The trail in front of the UW Friday Harbor Labs was part path, part scramble, worn smooth in some stretches and only guessed at in others. Fog had swallowed everything past the line where the Salish Sea met the cliffs. A wooden bench sat on the rocky pinnacle, and above it a lone tree stood watch over the next outcropping, its rocks slick with moss.

A cheerful, no-nonsense voice carried over the water, calling ferry passengers back to their vehicles. The foghorn sounded. The boat stayed invisible in all that white, though the dock was only minutes away.

An hour later, sunlight broke through the windows of our room at the Whiteley Center. By evening, the mist outside had turned to rain driving sideways against the glass. Four laptops glowed in the dim room, the only sound fingers on keys. It was, in the most literal sense, a dark and stormy night. The small writing group I meet with regularly had escaped the everyday for three days on an island that took two hours of driving and one ferry crossing to reach.

I've come to think I have an affinity for islands and water, or really for places that keep changing over the course of a day: shadows shifting as the sun moves, a tide going out to reveal how closely the shorebirds are tied to the shore. Stepping outside my regular routine is what makes the writing possible, and for me, that kind of changing scenery is a big part of it.

I don't know what your version is. A drive somewhere quiet, a morning before anyone else is awake, an hour away from your inbox. Whatever it is, it's probably doing more of the work than the task itself gets credit for.

That pull toward change is what keeps sending me back to writing retreats, and to a shorter version of one that doesn't need an island.

Field-Tested: The Scalable Writing Retreat

Over the last couple of years I've taken myself on writing retreats, sometimes alone and sometimes in a small, self-organized group. You don't need three days on an island for this to work. A weekend does the job, and so does a single morning, if you set it up right.

1. Step outside your regular routine, even briefly. It doesn't have to be far. A morning at your local coffee shop or library is enough of a change to matter.
2. Sketch a high-level plan before you start. Decide roughly what you're working on so you're not spending your first twenty minutes deciding.
3. Give yourself a loose schedule, no matter how short the block is. Even a single morning benefits from a rough shape that includes a stretch of writing, a break, and another stretch of writing.
4. Set one realistic goal and write it somewhere visible. Don’t aim to finish the whole thing; aim for something like one messy paragraph about a single memory or idea.
5. Build in one break that has nothing to do with writing. Take a walk, sketch something, or read a few pages of something unrelated.
6. Treat yourself to something small. A good snack or a coffee you didn't have to make yourself can turn the writing block into something you look forward to.

Any season can be a writing season.

One of the twenty-four squares on this year's Summer Bingo Card is "take a long weekend without checking email." It's the same idea, just scaled up: a full weekend instead of a single morning.

Signals & Shifts

The idea for the bingo card goes back further than last year, to summers as a kid filling out my public library's own reading bingo card. Seattle Public Library still runs a version worth borrowing, for both adults and kids.

The bears of Katmai National Park are having a gathering season of their own right now, fattening up along the falls ahead of winter. The live webcams are a genuinely good ten minutes of entertainment in an otherwise scattered day. Brooks Falls is my favorite.

Question for reflection: What would a single morning or weekend retreat look like for the project you keep circling back to but never quite get to? I'd love to hear what you land on. Hit reply and tell me.
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Take good care of yourself and the work that's yours to do. Both matter more than you know.

Nikoosh

P.S. If this issue's writing group made you wish you had that kind of built-in accountability for something else you're finishing, my friend and fellow newsletter writer Andrea Perino runs a program worth knowing about: the Ph*ing Do it! 90-Day PhD Finisher's Challenge. Structure, weekly accountability, and a small group in your corner for the final stretch of a PhD (or another big, well-defined deliverable). Her next cohort starts in September. Learn more and book some time with her to discuss if the cohort is the right fit for you.

Work That Lasts arrives every other Wednesday. Forward to a colleague who might need these tools, or reply and let me know what's working in your own practice.

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