Summertime and the Living is Easy
Summertime and the living is easy, plenty of languor, but you don’t need me to tell you it has been hot, hot, hot. One of my Best Writing Friends and I managed to escape to some slightly cooler environs for our second annual (hopefully) writing retreat, or what her husband entreated us to call it: a Writing Attack. After all, as he said, the last thing we want to do is retreat. This moniker falls squarely in the GSD camp, something that felt somewhat antithetical to my concept of getting away to write. I always have visions of sitting calmly, preferably next to a bubbling brook, patiently waiting for the muse to land on my shoulder. But in reviewing my dream list of what I wanted to get done during our few short days away, I realized the concept of a Writing Attack suited it much better. So thank you to my BWF’s husband for coming up with this amazing description! Writing Retreat? How about a Writing Attack instead?
Our DIY Writing Attack
While the thought of going to an “official” writing retreat (attack!) did and still does appeal, my BWF and I also live with many constraints on our time, energy, and, naturally, money (just like most of us). Organized writing retreats (attacks!) often cost thousands of dollars for a week’s worth of getting away from it all, and they usually involve hefty amounts of travel. Not to disparage the writing retreats (attacks!) out there, but none of them really met our criteria, which is how we came up with our DIY Writing Attack.
We each prefer to go with another person rather than alone, and we want full control of where, when and how we’ll stage our Writing Attack. The idea is to be someplace beautiful (not difficult in New Mexico), somewhat isolated, but also someplace close to our respective families in case we need to get home. Last year’s bed and breakfast was a success, but this year we opted for a cozy rental house, which ended up being cheaper, more convenient, and much more conducive to creating the right writing vibe. The last thing we wanted to do was cook, but it was nice to have access to a kitchen.
Going Solo
If going solo is more your style, Elizabeth Sims has a good article on how to set up a solo writing attack in this issue of Writer’s Digest magazine. A staycation, if you’re highly disciplined, can also work extremely well. I already spend so much time at home that a staycation doesn’t really appeal to me. I need it to feel like I’m getting out of my normal routine, not doing more of the same. But it can be an excellent option for some.
The best part of our Writing Attack, for me, is that we’re available to bounce ideas off of each other, but are perfectly comfortable sitting near each other, working silently. We enjoy a cup of nerdy Aeropress coffee first thing in the morning then get to work (although it seems to take me longer to get in the groove). Neither one of us is insulted knowing that we just want to be left the hell alone while we’re working. It’s important to choose your writing attack partner(s) wisely!
The “Bool Hunt”
In Steven King’s novel Lisey’s Story (which we’re just wrapping up over at my Doorstoppers Epic Reads book club on Fable), the main character, Lisey, tries to come to terms with the unexpected death of her famous writer husband. Lisey is left to deal with Scott’s archives, which she has ignored for the two years since his death, along with strange happenings that begin in his former writing studio. At a certain point Lisey recalls that her husband, Scott, told her that “Writing a book was a bool hunt,” his term for a kind of treasure or scavenger hunt. She also recalls that he said sometimes you’re left with nothing going through the process of writing a book but sometimes “if you were lucky, if you were brave, if you persevered…it brought you a treasure” in the form of a book.
Searching for that Bool
It isn’t realistic to expect a book out of a Writing Attack that lasts a few days. But searching for that bool, running down psychic clues and investigating what your subconscious throws at you, is. Finding momentum that is lost dealing with the hustle and bustle of everyday demands is invaluable. So how did it go? We were brave, we persevered, we attacked! And we found our own bools.
RIP Victoria Amelina
I’m cognizant of the incongruity of what I’m about to write, especially after having just returned from the luxury and comfort of spending three pleasant days writing with a good friend, but all the more reason to say it. Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina was injured on June 27, 2023, as part of a Russian missile strike on a restaurant known to be frequented by authors and journalists in Kramatorsk, Eastern Ukraine. Two other writers, the Colombian authors Héctor Abad and Catalina Gomez, with whom she was having dinner, were injured in the attack, which, all told, killed 13 and injured 60.
Victoria Amelina died from her injuries on July 1, 2023, leaving behind her husband and 12-year-old son. She accomplished a lot in her short life, including literally unearthing the diary of another Ukrainian author, Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was abducted from his home in the Russian-occupied city of Kapitolivka in March 2022. The diary documented Vakulenko’s experiences living under occupation and was discovered by Victoria buried under a cherry tree in the garden of his home. Volodymyr Vakulenko’s body was discovered in May 2022 with two bullet holes in it.
Dom’s Dream Kingdom and Fall Syndrome
Selected to be a fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination beginning September 2023, Victoria Amelina’s two adult novels, Dom’s Dream Kingdom and Fall Syndrome, were much-lauded. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find these works available to order in English. If you have been able to locate a source, please let me know. In the meantime, you can hear and see Victoria Amelina speak on “The Reason Why We Fight so Fiercely,” on the Velocity of Content podcast, recorded in May 2023. RIP.
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I wonder where that “bool hunt” came from in that novel. There is a “bool” concept in many programming languages: a boolean (or actually Boolean, after a guy named Boole) value is either true or false. There are also Boolean operators like “and”, “or” and so on, to perform logical operations on sets. e.g. if you want to find the common names in two lists of students, that would be an intersection, and so on 🙂
When I first read it, I, too, thought about Bool as in Boolean, but in the context of the novel it is one of many made-up words that the two main characters used with each other (or, in this case, that Scott created when he was a child and that he used with his older brother). The main definition of “bool” in the book would be akin to a treasure or a prize but there is one part where he talks about a “blood bool,” which is a kind of blood pact Scott has with his brother, Paul. I don’t know the background of how Stephen King came up with those words but it would be interesting to find out if he also had this Boolean connection or idea, as in something being true/false or, possibly, real/unreal, this world/another world, etc. Or maybe it is more of the opposite, that the lines between what is real and unreal are blurred rather than being so either/or, as they would be in a Boolean context. I felt like all the words he coined in the novel were meant to highlight the private world this married couple had for almost three decades before he died. This happens in different relationships all the time — we create our own private vocabularies, jokes, catch phrases, etc., that only the people in the relationship are privy to. I have read some criticism of this novel related to the usage (overusage?) of all of these words but I liked it. To me it was quite reminiscent of the way Annie spoke in Misery. It fits with the characters and their stories.
Awwww I’m a best writing Friend! Great blog post and great Writing Attack this year!
You most certainly are! And thank YOU! Looking forward to next summer — I’ll remember the insect repellent, though!