DIY Writing Retreats: What are they?

I'm heading into a Page Booster Writing Retreat this weekend, with my #FINISHERS group from First Book Finish.

Whenever I plan a DIY writing retreat like this, my whole body goes "Ahhhhhh."

Writing retreats are hands-down my favourite way to make substantive progress on a manuscript and reconnect to why I write in the first place.

At one point in my life, I was a single mother of a young child, doing a Masters degree part-time and working a full-time management level job in the non-profit sector. People would say to me “I just don’t know how you do it!” and I would secretly think “Gah, I don’t know either!”

But it’s also true that I had discovered a secret weapon.

I would organize writing retreats for myself.

Not the kind where you spend a month or so in the woods with a group of fellow writers, where there’s a lunch buffet every day (Hello Banff Centre!) or someone brings lunch to your studio door...