The Catholic Writers Guild

I am the luckiest woman in the world! For fifteen years, I’ve had an annual 10-day writing retreat in the best location possible: my own home! My dear husband has loaded up all the kids for their trip to Colorado, and I’ve stayed home in bliss and quietude to shake out the cobwebs and work on writing projects. It takes a while to get used to the amazing silence around me. My own inner agitation jumps in to fill the space left by the leaving of six other (loud!) people. I work it off by getting the house spic-and-span, looking forward to the way it stays clean effortlessly with everyone gone. All year I work on not feeling despair as newly cleaned areas disappear in the blink of an eye, and all year I long for this small opportunity to see the whole house clean at the same time. That done, and my initial agitation calmed by physical hustle, the next phase of my retreat begins.

I get out every single writing project and idea file I possess and spread them out on clean, flat surfaces all over the house. Dining table, coffee tables, end tables, folding tables and a king sized bed are filled with work in progress and notes for work to come. Next, the round box. In it, all year, I’ve stashed away notes taken at the speed of life – in the car, on the 4-a.m.-beside-pad, on the corner of the Sunday morning crossword, and on the backs of receipts and envelopes. Knowing they are kept for this moment, I can jot these bright ideas and leave them to rest safely until they emerge, with a ceremonial feel, into the light of day at this core of my writing life. Each little scrap is now treated with formal courtesy. I attend to the sometimes inscrutable scribbles as to an important guest. In an archeological dig through the layers of life since the last retreat, I have a collect of my own mind’s peripheral workings and associations. It’s amazing how many of these jots-and-tittles provide key links between other ideas, or significant puzzle pieces in other works under construction. These are a reminder that the Holy Spirit is always working on things I don’t have time for, and always working to weave all things together for good.

Now, just when you might think I’d get down to work, I break to play. I move completely away from all the work beckoning around me, and simply take the evening off for a nice dinner in front of some movie, or with a book I will not be tempted to highlight. The rest of the week, after milking goats and collecting eggs and making sure the dogs and pigs are fed and watering the garden and filling the ducks’ splash pool, I sleep-write-pray at will, with nary a look at the clock. This, to me,is one of the most important aspects of the retreat. Combine it with not once having to tell anyone else what to do, and having no phone conversations or visitors, and not running errands, and I am in heaven! I’ll pop out for Mass on Sunday, and then head home for this delicious extended-Sabbath of well-rested-work.

About that work. I go into this retreat with some idea what I think I’ll be focusing on, but that usually changes as I get down to it. Having all the less-important projects out lets me move easily from one to another as my mood or inspiration changes. It allows me to ‘play’ at one or another while ‘procrastinating’ a bit on something else. I’ve often re-shuffled projects to combine, or separate elements as further reflection on those topics seems to indicate. I’ve been surprised to find substantial work already accomplished on arriving at a folder I’d almost forgotten. I feel sometimes that this retreat is a ‘reunion’ for me with myself, with old favorite stories that have been growing for years, and with ideas that started in my youth and are only lately coming into maturity. I go through my ‘seed files’ to see what’s grown into a ‘seedling’ since last year, and needs to be transplanted into its own file. I sift through seeds as small as mere titles and single words to see what I might plant and nurture more. Naturally, some of my trees need pruning, as any writer can easily imagine!

So, that’s what I’m looking forward to (the first two weeks of every August), though it means I’ll miss the Conference with you all. May it be rescheduled sometime, as it was last year, so I can have the best of both worlds once again! I’ll pray for you who are going, and you who are not, and please pray for me during my annual writing retreat!

Charlotte Ostermann