Hi friends! I’ve just come home from a 3-night stay in a cosy, secluded cottage with two of my closest author friends, and it was so good for the soul.
We arrived on Friday evening to the beautiful little converted barn, The Cider House, to scented candles filling the house with a gorgeous scent, and a basket of welcome goodies from the lovely hostess.
After we’d settled in, we had dinner and caught up on each other’s lives. Then we wrote, talked about our works-in-progress and our plans for our author careers. It was a perfect evening with two of my favourite humans!
On Saturday, Rhianne and I got up at 6am to write and let Alice have a lie in (we’re all mums to young kids, so sleep is a precious commodity!). We’ve all got word count goals and deadlines to hit, so we sprinted throughout the day, between lots of bouncing ideas around and helping each other fill in plot holes, and find that one perfect word that’s right on the tip of your tongue but keeps eluding you.
We took a long walk through the surrounding countryside after lunch (a lot of snacks were consumed over the course of the weekend!), and Saturday evening was spent in ballgowns and crowns filming TikTok videos!
Here’s one of mine: https://www.tiktok.com/@lyndseyhall_/video/7225210653278080282?lang=en
On Sunday, we had a slightly more chilled day. I slept in until 8.30am and wrote for a while, but by the afternoon we were all ready for a break, so we decided to do a photo shoot and get some new author headshots and content for our socials.
Then we played a few games of Cluedo (there were loads of board games and books provided in the cottage) and had dinner, and then Alice went for a bath, using the lovely aromatherapy oils the hostess had provided, while me and Rhianne chatted and watched a movie.
I wrote for a while after the others had gone to bed to try and hit my word goal for the day. Then on Monday morning we packed up, tidied the cottage and said our goodbyes, before heading home!
It was the perfect mini writing retreat, we all wrote so many words and got over some bumps in our WIPs with each others help. And I think we all left feeling refreshed and reinvigorated for our writing and publishing careers. Or, I did, at least!
If you’re a writer and you’ve got author friends within a few hours drive, I can’t recommend a DIY writing retreat highly enough. Sometimes, being surrounded by other creatives with the same struggles and dreams as you can be exactly what you need to remind yourself you’re not alone on this path. We’re all in it together.
Lyndsey
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Lyndsey Hall | Author 