Thoughtful About . . . The Magic

Well, I’m back from my writing retreat. My manuscript is complete. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders. And as it eased off, I couldn’t help but contemplate about this strange thing that is a creative’s mind. The doubts that always plague us.

This was the sixth year my best friend and I have gotten together like this–and we skipped one year when she had a newborn, so I took a mini retreat at my parents’ house while they were out of town. Seven years ought to have given me a pretty good indicator of what I can accomplish. And it has. I know that, when on retreat, I can write at least 10,000 words a day. I know that in four full days, 40K isn’t a big ask. I know that I can do this, because I’ve done it six times before.

Stephanie and I trying out the couch our first evening at the Airbnb

But this year, I had to do it. The manuscript I was working on was due two days after I got home. This wasn’t a matter of getting a good start or finishing up a book due next month. This was critical.

Which means the fears crept in. What if, I kept thinking, the magic doesn’t work this time?

Intellectually, of course, I knew it wasn’t magic. There’s no great mystery about how these retreats work. It isn’t that our fingers are always flying, that something happens beyond my comprehension. We have a lot of time when we’re just sitting, hands still on our keyboards, working it out in our minds. We don’t type any faster than usual. It isn’t mystical. It’s just plain ol’ hard work. Often fourteen hours of it (with breaks to eat, walk, do jumping jacks, etc.).

Where I spent most of my weekend–in a big leather armchair, looking out over the living room and kitchen

But something that is unique to a retreat is that I prepare for it. I warn people I’ll be away. I set up an out-of-office auto-responder on my email. I clear everything else off my desk–even the things that are kinda pressing. I give myself permission to work on nothing else.

Something about that and the dedicated time does seem to be a recipe for success. It isn’t “magic.” But it certainly feels it, as I’m sitting in a crowded, noisy airport and manage to tune it all out and just put words on the page–though at home, a mere “Good morning” can derail me for half an hour.

This year, when I needed the retreat more than I ever have before, I was also more productive-per-hour than I’ve ever been. In a 56-hour period, I wrote 33,251 words. Given that quite a few of those hours were spend sleeping, LOL, that’s really, really good for me. At the end of my day of travel, I had 6,000 words. Day 2 (first full day), I wrote 15K. And I went to bed that night thinking, “Okay, my worries were so silly. I can do this. I knew I could do this. But now I feel like I can do this.”

After my 15K day, I knew on Saturday that I’d probably finish my book that day– which made the coffee at Groundhouse all the sweeter.

But this is pretty typical of us humans, isn’t it? Even when they shouldn’t, doubts plague us. Even when we know something in our heads, that doesn’t mean we get the message in our hearts. Our knowers can know, but our worriers still worry. Sometimes, that can paralyze us. As my deadline drew nearer and my to-list was a mile long with other time-sensitive tasks too, there were days at home when I just stared at the screen, fighting back the panic, not knowing what to do first.

There’s never a magic recipe for escaping that. But there’s something better. There’s hard work. And there’s the sure knowledge that even when we fail, God doesn’t. Even if we mess something up, He can make beauty from the ashes. It isn’t an excuse not to give things more-than-our-best and strive for excellence–it’s just knowing that when our strength fails, we can rely on His instead to help us achieve it.

We celebrated the end of the retreat with tacos

I thoroughly enjoyed my long weekend in Kansas City with my best friend. And I also chuckled at myself as I thought about the very different emotional state I was in a week before. Emotions change–hence motion in the word, right? But we can choose not to be ruled by them. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of putting in the hard work so that our feelings can catch up with our certainty.