Writers' Workshops, Retreats and Courses - snare, pitfalls and blessings by SC Skillman

 I just read a book review on Rosie Amber’s Book Blog, by Jenni, a member of Rosie’s review team. . She reviews a new book, The Workshop: WeekOne by Matt Mills - for anyone who has ever attended a writers’ workshop, retreat or class.

The Workshop Week One by Matt Mills - book cover image

The book sounds funny and perceptive, and it must go on my TBR list – but it also seems just the sort of thing I wish I had written (as is the case with a number of published books I admire, and a comment which unwittingly provides an ironical key to the subject of this article!)

Hang on through – I did write something based upon writing workshops! My first mystery novel Mystical Circles is ostensibly about an esoteric new age cult in the Cotswolds. But amongst my many inspirations for this story were – the writing workshops, retreats and courses I have attended in my life.

In Mystical Circles, my main protagonist attracts the attention of an ardent Welsh poet… and later on in the story she has an edgy and tense encounter with him in an enclosed setting which might have led to disaster. This is based upon my own experience at a residential writing retreat.

I'm familiar with ardent aspiring writers, having spent many years as one myself. There's nothing quite like meeting someone who wants to know about the creative work you are writing and will listen to you talking about it, with apparent understanding and fellow-feeling... until their eyes become glazed and you get your cue to shut up and change the subject.

Writers' workshops can become very intense; and a group of such writers in a room together is a powerful thing. I discovered this in my early 20's at an Arvon Foundation poetry writing week in Totleigh Barton farmhouse, Devon. I'd booked for the poetry week because I was too frightened to attend the novel-writing course, as I didn’t think I could bear the exposure of having to read out aloud to a group extended passages of my creative prose  and then have my entire concept for the novel shot down in flames (a totally false idea of mine, by the way).

A few years before, though, I had experienced some interesting encounters at a poetry and fiction writing course in a college in South Darenth, Kent, and also during my Creative Writing classes at Lancaster University. There is nothing like a writerly ego. Put one in a closed environment, preferably residential, together with several other writerly egos all at different stages of their writing abilities and level of personal confidence or lack of the same, and you have… fertile material for a novel.

I remember reading a crime novel once about a tightly knit literary community who were cut off in an enclosed environment... one of my favourite topics. I found it gripping and wholly convincing, though sadly I cannot remember the title and author. I don't know if it was a PD James novel. Hypersensitivity, insecurity, and murderous motivations interacted freely in a rich cocktail.

In my experience you may find someone who's only there because their spouse doesn’t understand them, and because you are willing to talk to them about their proposed novel or their poetry etc. and they have discovered you are their true soulmate. You will find someone who is well advanced in a substantial, profound manuscript from which any readings are totally incomprehensible. (Someone once said to me, years ago, “Your novel, Sheila, will be so profound that no-one will notice.”  Actually, he was being funny, and I did laugh!)

And you will find someone whose frenetic, volatile poetry is full of their own personal anguish and angst and tortured family relationships, amongst some genuine poetic gems, but who immediately appoints you as their personal counsellor when you show any kind of insight into or empathy for their inspiration.

Of course, my experience within the ACW local writers group has been utterly different. We have supported and encouraged each other; we have shared short pieces, laughed and eaten together, celebrated and commiserated together. We attend each others book launches and review each others advance copies if we can, and I always come away from the meetings feeling uplifted and re-energised. 

So there you are. Human beings are elemental, and all things are possible.

Wendy H Jones is now taking bookings for the Auscot Mists and Manuscripts writing retreat in Scotland, and I do hope that her retreat will be filled with encouragement and inspiration - and maybe a couple of counsellors on the premises as well, just in case!

Sheila writes mystery fiction and nonfiction under the pen-name SC Skillman. Her three nonfiction books are published by Amberley: Paranormal Warwickshire, Illustrated Tales of Warwickshire, and A-Z of Warwick. This last book will be out from Amberley on 15 November 2023 and the book launch party is in Warwick Visitor information Centre, The Court House, Warwick, on Saturday 25 November 2023 2.30-4.30pm. Consider yourself invited, and all are welcome! My two mystery novels, published under my own imprint Luminarie, are Mystical Circles and A Passionate Spirit. I was born and brought up in Orpington, Kent, and studied English Literature at Lancaster University; my first permanent job was with the BBC in London. Later I lived for five years in Australia before returning to the UK to settle in Warwick with my husband and son; my daughter lives and works in Australia.