Last Sunday, I had a stuffy nose, and since an out-of-town friend was coming to stay with me, I decided to test for COVID, even though I’d had it a month ago. And WTF, my test was positive! I couldn’t believe it, so I took a second test. Positive again!

So for the past few days (taking isolation seriously in order to try not to give it to my husband) I’ve had an adventure in my room–my own personalized writing retreat.

I love my room, which is where I both sleep and write, and has its own attached bathroom. I usually spend a lot of time here, but somehow it’s different when I know I have to be here, when the rest of the house is off limits except for a few brief masked forays into the kitchen, accompanied by hand-wipes to sanitize everything I might touch.

It’s kind of like facing the terror of the blank page.

After all, there’s nothing here but me, my books, and my computer. And I can only distract myself for so long with email, social media, and Wordle before the real work calls: poems to revise, poems to submit, a knotty novel that needs to be smoothed out, the last round of edits on my short-story collection, this blogging project, posts for Rogan’s list–the Call to Action site I write for (check it out on substack), articles and mailings related to my immigration justice work. In terms of COVID, I feel absolutely fine–healthy enough to write all day.

If only I could.

I’ve generally gotten a good jump start in the morning after a yoga or exercise tape and been able to write until my husband, the saint, brings lunch to the door. Then, a refreshing walk outside, a ritual I’m religious about that’s easy to do in a COVID compliant way in my unpopulated neighborhood. Hell, I even walked in yesterday’s Noreaster! It was, admittedly, unpleasant to forge through the wind with the soggy slush pouring down, but not as unpleasant as it would have been to stay inside all day. And I’m very much looking forward to going outside today when the sun is shining on the snow. The view from the window is already beckoning.

But after my walk, 9 times out of 10, the afternoon doldrums hit, and I don’t want to write a word.

Many people love writing retreats. They feel they get their best work with the quiet and peace of a new environment and uninterrupted time. But I’ve avoided them because to me a retreat means extra pressure on myself to produce. And when I’m in a new environment, I’m drawn to exploring it, rather than sitting somewhere and writing all day. If I’m going to go to Guatemala, I want to spend all my time seeing Guatemala, not a lined page in a notebook or a computer screen.

And, as I’m learning, I can’t even write all day in my very familiar bedroom.

But that’s just how I’m wired. If you’re one of those people who thrives from being creative in a place that’s free of daily household stress and chores, go for the retreat. I’d just advise being gentle with yourself on how much you get done.

And if you’re like me, or you can’t afford the luxury of a retreat right now, trust that there are other ways to get into your groove. We can delude ourselves by saying things like “I can’t write unless I have …. things you might not ever have like a cottage by the sea, a week in the woods with a bottle of whiskey, four straight hours of uninterrupted time, etc.

And then you might never write.

It might take a while to figure out how to create optimal writing space with what you do have. And this is going to be different for everyone. I’m looking forward to exploring some ideas in another post, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear your comments on what writing conditions work for you.

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