I glance around the ancient, high-ceilinged stone room we’re sitting in. The retreat is taking place in an old monastery in Puglia. There are eight of us, sitting on well-worn wooden chairs, all dressed in the plain linen kurta pajamas we were given this morning. That’s one of the rules of this retreat: You can’t wear your own clothes. Nor can you use your own name. Nor can you have your phone. You have to hand it in at the start of the week and you only get it back for half an hour a night, or for an emergency. Plus there’s no Wi-Fi. At least, not for guests.
On arrival, we were given lunch in our own bedrooms so that we wouldn’t meet before this afternoon. The rooms are old monks’ cells with whitewashed walls and paintings of the Madonna all over the place. (They’ve also been knocked through, if you ask me. Don’t tell me monks had enough room for king-size beds, writing tables, and hand-embroidered ottomans, available for purchase in the gift shop.)
After lunch I sat on my linen bedspread, trying to focus on my plot and only occasionally scrolling through photos of Harold on my laptop. Then we were individually ushered into this space and asked to remain silent. So I’m sitting with a group of utter strangers with whom I haven’t exchanged a single word, just a couple of shy smiles. Five other women and two men. They’re all older than me, apart from a thin bony guy who looks to be in his twenties and a girl who looks like she’s a college student.
It’s all quite intense. Quite strange. Although in fairness, I knew it would be. I read a stack of online reviews before I booked this course, and 90 percent of them described it as “intense.” Other words that cropped up were “eccentric,” “immersive,” “challenging,” and “lot of bloody nutters.” But also “sublime” and “life-changing.”
I’m choosing to believe “sublime” and “life-changing.”
“Let me now explain to you the philosophy of this writing retreat,” says Farida, and she pauses.
She pauses a lot as she speaks, as though to air her words and consider them. She’s in her fifties, half-Lebanese and half-Italian. I know this because I’ve read her book about dual heritage, called I and I. At least I half-read it. (It’s a bit long.) She has sleek dark hair and a calm demeanor and is wearing the same kurta linen pajamas as the rest of us, except they look far better on her. I bet she’s had hers tailored.
“This week is not about how you look,” she continues. “Or what your background is. Or even what your name is. It is purely about your writing. Remove your self, and your writing will shine.”
I glance at the skinny, dark-haired woman sitting next to me. She’s writing Remove your self and your writing will shine, in her notebook.
Should I write it down too? No. I can remember it.
“I have run writing retreats for many years,” Farida continues. “In the early days, I had none of these rules. My students began by introducing themselves, sharing their names, backgrounds, and experiences. But what happened? The conversations grew and mushroomed. They chatted about publishing, children, day jobs, holidays, current affairs…and none of them wrote!” She smacks one hand against the other. “None of them wrote! You’re here to write. If you have a thought you want to share, put it into your writing. If you have a joke you want to make, put it into your writing.”
She’s quite inspiring. If a little intimidating. The thin bony guy has raised his hand, and I admire his guts. I would not be raising my hand at this point.
“Are you saying this is a silent retreat? Can’t we talk?”
Farida’s face creases into a broad smile. “You can talk. We will all talk. But we will not talk about ourselves. We will release our minds from the strain of small talk.” She eyes us all severely. “Small talk depletes creativity. Social media stifles thought. Even choosing an outfit every morning is needless effort. So, for one week, we will let all that nonsense go. We will engage instead with big talk. Character. Plot. Good and evil. The right way to live.”
She picks up a basket from a heavy carved side table and walks around, handing out blank name badges and pens.
“Your first task is to choose a new name for the week. Liberate yourselves from your old selves. Become new selves. Creative selves.”
As I take my name badge, I feel quite excited by becoming a new creative self. Also, she’s right about the outfits. I knew in advance about the kurta pajamas, so packing was easy. Pretty much all I needed was sunblock, hat, swimsuit, and my laptop to write my book.
Or, at least, finish my book. It’s a romantic story set in Victorian England, and I’m a bit stuck. I’ve got up to my hero, Chester, riding off on a hay wagon in the golden sunshine, exclaiming, “When next you see me, Ada, you will know I’m a man of my word!” but I don’t know what he does next, and he can’t stay on the hay wagon for two hundred pages.
Nell thinks he should die in an industrial accident and help to change the archaic labor laws of the day. But that seems a bit gloomy to me. So then she said, “Could he be maimed?” and I said, “What do you mean?” which was a mistake, because now she keeps googling horrendous accidents and sending me links with titles like, Could he lose a foot?
The trouble is, I don’t want to write about Chester being mangled in a thresher. Nor do I want to base the evil landowner on Maud’s old chemistry teacher. The thing about friends is, they’re very helpful, but they’re almost too helpful. They all suggest their own ideas and confuse you. That’s why I think this week away will be really helpful.
I wonder what Harold’s doing.
No. Stop.
I blink back to reality as I notice the woman next to me putting on her name badge. She’s called herself “Metaphor.” Oh God. Quick, I need to come up with a name. I’ll call myself…what? Something literary? Like “Sonnet”? Or “Parenthesis”? Or something dynamic like “Velocity”? No, that was a team on The Apprentice.
Come on. It doesn’t matter what I call myself. Quickly I write Aria, and pin my badge onto my pajama top.
Then I realize Aria’s almost exactly my real name.
Oh well. No one will ever know.
“Well done.” Farida’s eyes gleam at us. “Let us introduce our writing selves.”
We go round the room and everyone says their “name” out loud. We’re called Beginner, Austen, Booklover, Metaphor, Aria, Scribe, Author-to-Be, and Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise—the bony guy. He goes on to inform us he’s writing a graphic novel, not a romantic one, but his screenwriter friend told him this course was good, and you can learn from anything, right? Then he starts on some rant about the Marvel Universe, but Farida gently cuts him off and tells him we’ll call him “Kirk” for short.
I already like the look of Scribe. She’s got cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a tanned face, and a mischievous smile. Beginner has cotton-candy white hair and must be eighty at least. Author-to-Be is the guy with gray hair and a paunch, and the student is Austen. Booklover looks about forty and has exchanged a friendly smile with me—meanwhile Metaphor has already shot her hand up.
“You say we shouldn’t talk about ourselves,” she says a bit snippily. “But surely we’ll reveal elements of ourselves in our writing?” She sounds as if she wants to catch out Farida, thus demonstrating how clever she is. But Farida just smiles, unruffled.
“Of course you will reveal your souls as you write,” she says. “But this is a romantic-fiction writing retreat. The art of fiction is to present reality as though it’s unreality.” She addresses the whole room. “Be artful. Use disguises.”
That’s a good tip. Maybe I’ll change my heroine’s name from Ada to something a bit less like Ava. Victorienne. Is that a name?
I write down Victorienne in my notebook, just as Farida resumes speaking.
“Today we look at the principles of story,” she says. “I would like each of you to say what story means for you. Just one sentence. Beginning with Austen.”
“Right.” Austen colors bright red. “It’s…um…wanting to know the end.”
“Thank you.” Farida smiles. “Author-to-Be?”
“Crikey!” says Author-to-Be with a throaty chortle. “Put me on the spot, why don’t you! Er…beginning, middle, end.”
“Thank you,” says Farida again, and she’s about to draw breath when there’s a rattle at the huge wooden door. It swings open and a woman I recognize as Nadia, the course administrator, beckons Farida over. They have a hurried whispered conversation, during which we all glance at one another uncertainly, then Farida turns back to address us.
“As you know, there are three different retreats taking place in the monastery this week,” she begins. “Writing, meditation, and martial arts. Unfortunately, the leader of the martial-arts retreat has been taken ill and a replacement has not been found. Those guests have been given the opportunity to join one of the other retreats instead—and three have chosen to join our writing group. I would ask you to welcome them.”
We all watch, agog, as the door widens. Two men and a woman walk in—and my heart jumps. That taller, dark-haired guy. Wow.
He smiles round the room and I feel my throat tighten. OK. So it turns out my instincts don’t want a holiday, after all. My instincts are leaping up and down and pulling in the extra emergency-instincts team and yelling, “Look, look!”
Because he’s gorgeous. I’ve been on thirty-six online first dates—and not one has sent a streak of electricity through me like this.
He’s got to be in his late thirties. He’s well built—you can see that through the fabric of his kurta pajamas. Wavy black hair, faint stubble, a strong jaw, deep-brown eyes, and a fluid, easy motion as he takes his seat. He smiles at his neighbors a little uncertainly as he takes a name badge and pen from Farida and regards them thoughtfully. He’s the most good-looking person in the room by a million miles, but he doesn’t even seem to have noticed.