A writing retreat experience.

Hi there!

Last week I went on a writing retreat. Now I have say this was not the kind of writing retreat you imagine that takes place in an idyllic countryside with good food, good wine and peaceful isolation, instead it was a 2 day programme that took place in a small conference room in central London - Glamorous! 

Photo Via Unsplash

During these 2 days we had a workshop where we learnt skills to do with editing, questions surrounding what was ‘good’ academic writing and how to overcome writers block. We also had 1-2-1 sessions with professional writers who read some of our work and have personalised advice we could take forward to improve our work, as well as some timed dedicated writing sessions.

Here are some of the tips I found really useful during the sessions:

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

1. As writers we are responsible for carrying the reader through the text. Imagine someone approaches you and says “hey, I know it’s raining and it’s cold outside but do you want to go for a walk through a dark forest and see where we end up?” I’m guessing your answer would be “no”. Instead, imagine the same person approaches you and says “Hey, I’ve found this amazing forest which leads to a beautiful lake and I’d love to show you, here’s a map of the way and this is exactly what sights we will see, would you like to come?” Now I’m guessing that second option is a lot more enticing. As a writer it is YOUR job to take the reader by the hand and show them the way, don’t make them work harder than necessary.
2. A PhD thesis is still a story, make sure to put your own voice into it, the reader is more likely to remember it and enjoy reading it. Following on from this, remember why you started your PhD and the passion behind it and try to put that excitement across.
3. There was once a trend for academic writing to be as complicated as possible in order to make the scholar look more intelligent and this makes the research inaccessible to anyone without the same level of education. I think this is now changing, as more emphasis gets put on the impact of research and public dissemination make sure your writing is clear and interesting to a non-specialist audience where possible.

For the second part of the session we did 45 minute timed writing sessions and I have to say this was hard. I found the first session was ok but by the 3rd and 4th time around I was flagging. It made me realise that even when I think I’m being focused at writing on my own I’m always actually being distracted by my phone, by others, by that pile of washing up that needs doing. When I was forced to only focus on my work not only did I get so much more done but the quality of what I produced was better. Now to work out how to motivate myself to recreate this in my own time!

It was really valuable to set aside some dedicated writing time and remind myself to go back to basics with editing my own my work. I’ve got a renewed sense of motivation to write and it turns out that blank page wasn’t so scary after all. If you need me I’ll be at my desk writing!

Until next time...  x

Poetic thought of today: So edit me until I’m perfect and these flaws can run down your spine like goosebumps.

Just a little disclaimer to note that everything I write in this blog is of my own opinion and is very specific to my situation, everyone doing a PhD may have very different experiences.