Issue 102: Be messy on the page

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Earlier this year, I did an at-home writing retreat where I wrote 5K words over two days. The weekend was a realization that deep focus and mental/physical breaks can be created without massively disrupting my everyday life. It also helped me stretch and reconsider what I thought myself capable of in terms of writing sessions. Writing 1000+ words on weekends now feels easier, something I can do regularly rather than reserve it only for 1000 Words of Summer.

For my sister’s birthday in May, I treated her to a writing retreat where we would Write 20,000 Words in 3 Days(!). If an at-home writing retreat was like running a 10K and 1000 Words of Summer was a marathon, this felt like…an Ironman. (Can you tell I’m not a runner?) The irony is that I discovered how nice it was that you don’t have to drastically escape to the woods to change up your writing environment, and yet it was very nice to escape to the woods to change up my writing environment.

Katie wrote a great recap of our weekend with her own takeaways and additional resources!

This was the third or fourth time that Chloé Caldwell and Jillian Eugenios had hosted this type of retreat, and they were confident we’d all leave with 20K words. They laid out some loose structure (optional check-ins at the start and end of each day, plus prompts) and creative resources (a whole picnic table worth of craft books, as well as things like Write Or…).

I especially appreciated Chloé saying up front that the focus was getting to the 20K words. It was okay for us to not be super social. Meals would be provided, and we could just grab food and go back to our rooms if we were in the zone. Compared to writing conferences and workshops, this was truly just focused on generation.

We arrive at the beautiful Spruceton Inn, walk around the nearby creek and barn full of books by artists they’ve hosted at their residency, and meet the other writers. We’d all written the first 5K in the two weeks leading up to the retreat, so we technically only have 15K to write over the next few days. We share three minute readings from what we’ve written so far, and it’s the first time I’ve read anything from my novel!

Chloé emphasizes her ethos that writing should not be a corporate slog, that we are lucky to get to do what we do. As much as I post memes in this newsletter about the horrors and hardships of writing, it’s true that the main reason I love writing is the feeling of total immersion, and this entire year I’ve been trying to make writing as fun as possible.

Back in our room, I finish a scene and turn in early. I’m not a morning person, but I want to get a jump on the day.

2516 words in draft
Total: 7623 words

I don’t wake up early. Ever since COVID, I sleep so poorly the first night in new places. (It didn’t help that Katie brought an analog clock whose ticking could be heard from outer space.) I miss the morning check-in but Katie shares the prompt with me: change locations—physically and in the manuscript.

For our first location, Katie and I write outside at a picnic table. It’s a perfect summer day: 70s, sunny, and not too humid. My head takes awhile to wake up so I decide to just work on a character sketch for a secondary character. I’ve used the Writing Excuses prompt for writing a character monologue in the past, so I do the same and write from his perspective.

After lunch, Katie and I go on a noticing walk along the creek. We move to the barn where we write most of the afternoon, fueled by more coffee and seltzers. I do a lot of 35 minute Pomodoro sessions. We walk over to West Kill Brewing down the road, hoping to write a bit more but we end up distracted by a cute corgi and chat with some of the other writers.

Jillian baked an amazing chocolate cake for Katie’s birthday, and we surprise her with it! We all drink wine around a bonfire expertly built by Emily and Kit, and talk about books, alignment charts and personality types, publishing, and anything else. At 10pm, Katie and I head back to our room and write more. Sitting across from each other and losing a bit of steam, we take turns saying, “We wanted to do this, we wanted to be here.”

5633 words in outline
Total: 13,256 words

I sleep much better and have leftover cake for breakfast, so I feel unstoppable. After the morning check-in, a few of us go on a quick waterfall hike. The water is so cold I can only put my feet in for a few seconds at a time, but braver souls do a complete cold plunge.

We all lock in for the rest of the day. Katie and I split up, and I write primarily in Room 11 which has a big long table where I can spread out my notebooks and snacks. Until now, I’ve written in sequential order, but today, I let myself work on random parts out of order, starting new chapters without knowing where they’re going or how they’ll end. Chloé had said that people are often afraid to be messy on the page, but writing will ultimately lead you to what you want to say.

Today’s prompt is to do the opposite of what you usually do in your writing routine. I typically write in total silence, so I put on the Us soundtrack while I’m writing a scene where the characters watch a horror movie. I have more seltzers and a beer, kept cool by our snazzy new koozies. I continue to channel a Marie Kondo attitude for writing (“I love mess”) and work on two different scenes/chapters.

We do a final reading in the barn as the sun goes down. This time, we can share whatever we want, and it’s a treat to hear from people’s novels and personal essays, both published and works in progress.

As Katie writes:

By Sunday, both of us felt the shift from thinking in the hundreds of words to thinking in the thousands. The yardstick had changed. By the time we got to our last 2k words, Nicole and I each found the remaining word count easy and not at all daunting in the way that it felt just a couple days ago.

It’s the most I’ve ever written in a single day, yet I feel more energized and satisfied rather than tired or burnt out.

6082 words in draft
Total: 19,338 words

Katie and I each write our last few thousand words before the last check-in. We share our final word counts, do some writing exercises, and toast with prosecco! Chloé asks us to draft a Creative Contract, an exercise from Suleika Jaouad, as a way to guide our writing practice going forward.

Here’s my creative contract:

• Write 2-3 times a week. Schedule it by the week. On the weekend, write at least 1000 words. Once a season, do an at-home writing retreat. Writing should not only be in the margins of your life.

• Any writing towards the novel—in the draft, in outlines, in writing prompts, in brainstorming and outlining—counts. Thinking is writing. Embrace “headlights writing.”

• Don’t confuse routine with consistency. Consistency is what’s important, so don’t be afraid to change up your routine: write early before work one week, join cowriting hours on Zoom, choose new cafes to write in, go on your own writing retreats.

907 words in draft, 117 in creative contract
Total: 20,245 words

Despite leaving the weekend having written 20K words, I keep coming back to Chloé saying that “there is no god in word count.” The word count is a proxy meant to push you into a state of focus and immersion. It’s a skill or muscle you can now use.

It’s not just for the word count’s sake. What’s effective is that it helps you get away from “is it good or bad” and gets you to embrace being messy. Commit to something, but know you can edit it later. Do things you wouldn’t normally do and see what’s possible. Rethink what a craft book is. Time makes meaning.

• It was so wonderful getting to know Chloé and Jillian and their DIY, community-oriented approach to gathering—Chloé offers retreats and classes year-round, and Jillian offers mentorship for writers, filmmakers, journalists, freelancers, and more!

• Submit to Electric Literature’s Emerging Writer’s Contest from July 1 to July 15 in both poetry and fiction.

• Zadie Smith on art for our sakes: “Art can luxuriate. Wander. It may embellish and decorate, or refuse to be convenient, dogmatic, obliging. Its distance from the prerogatives of the powerful is precisely where its force of resistance lies.”

• Some prompts to get writing: Ten Writing Prompts from Lucy Ives and Oblique Strategies (Chloé introduced us to this deck of cards with “unconventional prompts and creative dilemmas”)

• Wendy’s Subway is a reading room, writing space, and independent publisher in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Submit to their 2026 Book Prize and Carolyn Bush Award through July 24.

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews is a darkly funny novel about Yoli, a woman taking care of her sister Elf, a renowned pianist, after another one of her suicide attempts. Alongside its heavy subjects, Toews also captures the cycle of caretaking, familial bonds, and meditations on creativity and what it means to be alive. It’s one of my favorite reads of the year.

Some friends and I saw I Love Boosters, a messy, visually stunning, ambitious heist comedy about labor and fashion. E and I watched Midsommar on the summer solstice at A24’s Cherry Lane Theatre.

We just did a two week trip to China, and on our long plane rides, I rewatched Wall-E and saw Paris Is Burning, a documentary that’s long been on my watchlist and was incredibly moving and devastating. I also read the rest of Sherry Thomas’s excellent London Trilogy, including The Luckiest Lady in London and His at Night. In Beijing, we saw Disclosure Day and now my sister can’t stop making the alien clicking noises.

E and I rewatched Her, which is still such a relevant exploration of technology and loneliness (I only wish the AIs of today were as willing as Scarlett Johansson to get up and leave). For my birthday in early June, partly because of nostalgia and partly because we sat next to Beanie Feldstein at a neighborhood dinner, we rewatched Lady Bird.

Recently read short stories: “Honor Code” by Sarah Turbin

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There’s nothing scarier than hot drinks with lids. An inspirational message from Will Schuester. Readers move on quickly. The title of every literary novel right now. World Cup cross-cultural exchange: Scots find the Boston Cop Slide and “I am…EXCITED!!!”