Go On Retreat Without Leaving Home

lizshine74by lizshine74

In A Room Of Your Own, Retreat.

Go On Retreat Without Leaving Home

We’re in that liminal space between winter and spring where the weather can’t quite make up its mind on any given day. The light is starting to return, and I’m itching to make some progress on my book. So, I’ve decided to do a virtual retreat this February. Here is a free tool I created to support that focus. If you’re game, try it with me anytime in February. I’ve designated starting February 10 and going until February 24 for my own reasons. These dates give me a little warm-up time to get my ducks lined up. It’s also the lead-up to my 50th birthday, and I’ve already got dinner with one of my favorite writing buddies on the 24th, which feels like a perfect finale.

The idea is to deep-dive into focus for a given amount of time without leaving home. To prioritize writing during that time. You’ll have to let some other things go. It’s only temporary, though you may find you should have let cut them loose ages ago. I’m doing this, and I will report back to all my friends on Substack. I’d love for you to join me and let me know how it goes for you.

I also work as a writing coach and love helping writers gain confidence, set goals, and develop their work. For more information on coaching, email me at eatyourwords.lizshine@gmail.com.

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA in the USA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She has published in Shark Reef, Dual Coast, and Blue Crow Magazine. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.