writing retreat for women
The Salty Quill
Picking up the Habit of Art
How do we maintain our commitment to the quiet inner voice of art, often the first casualty of our overcommitted lives? Make it a habit. According to researcher Christine Carter, ninety-five percent of our brain activity isn’t actually conscious: she uses the metaphor of an elephant with a tiny rider to describe the tug-of-war between habit and willpower.
In this workshop, Ellis Avery offers a variety of tools and techniques, including haiku, postcards, and timed exercises, for harnessing the power of the elephant instead of taxing the stamina of the rider. By making the labor of art as easy and habitual as possible, we overcome procrastination, make room for new inspiration, and finish even long projects.
Writers who seek a daily writing practice will receive support and encouragement for doing so. Writers who already have one will appreciate this workshop’s focus on nudging ourselves to produce immediate, sensually-engaged work with a larger audience in mind.
SECOND SESSION
The Golden Thread of Desire: What Can Fiction Writers Learn from Playwrights?
Many of us have read—and, alas, written—subtle, well-wrought stories or novels in which a character’s most secret soul is illuminated and yet (yawn) nothing really happens, or pyrotechnically masterful stories in which cars explode and the world ends and yet (ho-hum) nobody cares.
To tackle both problems, Ellis Avery proposes that writers ask themselves three questions which, according to The Playwright’s Guidebook by Stuart Spencer, theater people ask themselves all the time: What does my character want? What prevents my character from getting what he or she wants? Does my character get what he or she wants in the end, or not?
If a novel is composed of "a beginning, a muddle, and an end," Avery speaks to writers about how the golden thread of desire—what a character wants—can lead writer, character, and reader alike through the labyrinth of the "muddle" and out to the end of the novel.
Although Avery’s primary work has been in fiction writing, the techniques discussed in this workshop will serve any writer who seeks to keep readers turning pages. Avery will draw on a variety of sources, but special attention will be given to Flannery O’ Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.
with Ellis Avery
FIRST SESSION