The gloriously creative power of extended solitude
I've always been a professional writer with a day job. Once, I gave myself a whole month of nothing but writing - and the experience by far surpassed my expectations.
I’ve been writing professionally for thirty years now and have never taking a time-out to focus on just the story for an extended period of time. When I finally did spend a whole month in Ireland’s remote Connemara (the setting of John Ford’s The Quiet Man), I discovered a time of pure writer’s bliss.
I’ve always had a day job and it’s always worked out well for me. I can write anytime, anywhere. It’s a muscle I’ve trained for a long, long time. Because of multiple responsibilities, writing’s always been early mornings, late nights, parts of weekends ... and in all the years I never neglected a deadline. I learned to make the most of the time I had and was always as fast in delivering as my full-time writer colleagues during screenwriting gigs on TV shows.
But then there was that one time when a tremendous opportunity presented itself - the prospect of a whole month’s worth of nothing but writing. My wonderful wife encouraged me to jump at that opportunity, to leave everything behind for that time, and so I was gone from my family, my day job, all of the usual responsibilities. I rented a cottage in remote and rugged Connemara.
It really was remote. Look at the above images - the one in the middle was the view from my cottage, a quaint little near Maam, surrounded by green hills and narrow paths and sheep and not much else. There was no internet, which I highly recommend for such a writer’s retreat. So there I was, parked my rental, wandered through the cottage, unpacked and mused about writing something, anything.
Here’s a helpful trick: I flew to Dublin, then drove across to Connemara, to the place I had rented for a whole month … with a clear permission from myself to myself that I did not need to write one single line. I was free to do absolutely nothing. When you can let go of expectations, or demands, or pressures … it can release a great deal. But again, you have to truly be okay with not writing. In my case, that freedom to do or not do meant that, at the end of that month, I had written a complete novel.
This is not something you can or should expect. It is definitely not something you should try. Because if you start with the expectation that you need to have a finished novel by the end of the month, the pressure will be a massive creativity detractor. Talking about detractors: During my four weeks in Connemara, I barely talked to anyone. While people and places and experiences can be truly enriching, they can also lead you astray.
I had arrived without characters and without a plot, all I had were two elements I wanted to work with. The first was death. I had lost, in fairly quick succession, my dad to old age, my brother to suicide and my mom to dementia. So I wanted my protagonist to have lost his entire family. The second thing I wanted in my story was, for some reason, a giant! So there I was, in remote Ireland and from pretty much nothing there grew a fairy tale for adults that turned out to be, unsurprisingly, as Irish as could be.
I would wake up and start writing. I would sometimes go for walks and sometimes for drives (without the distraction of radio) and always have characters and story flowing across my mind. I would take breaks when it felt right and I would just go on writing if that’s what I wanted to do. Some days I wrote half a day, others I didn’t leave the cottage once for fresh air.
I’d look at progress before hitting the sack and I’d voice-record ideas if they hit me while in bed. I’d wake in the middle of the night, record something, mostly asleep - then use it first thing the next morning. I would go pick blackberries in the morning for my oatmeal breakfast, listen to the birds, watch bees drunkenly travel from fuchsia to fuchsia. I’d go for hikes when I felt like roaming and occasionally I met other people and exchanged a word or two. I was always glad to move on, to listen to the characters in my head again.
One time, I had been there for about two weeks already, I decided to go to a pub, enjoy an ale, maybe listen to a bit of live music. Much as I love Irish music, I was in and out of that place within less than ten minutes. The problem had not been the music, of course, but the noise! People mingling, conversing, laughing, voices rumbling and crackling and almost singing - all of it entirely lovely merriment. But to my ears it was a cacophonous onslaught.
I guess that, for me, going remote really meant staying remote. My mind beautifully settled into the quiet and the calm of solitude. Interactions with the rest of the world were simply jarring. Again, that’s just me. I’m sure many other writers would come back to the their story fully inspired after a jolly pub crawl.
I have to mention my favorite place. There was a hotel at Maam Cross called the Peacockes. There, every Sunday, they had a buffet … not only did they have a buffet, they also had - even if barely - internet! I’d cook simple meals for myself at the cottage, but on Sundays it was the Peacockes buffet for me. There was a big hall and always lots of empty tables. I’d fill my plate and make myself comfortable at a table at the back that, I had learned, was in range of a network router. I’d eat, I’d catch up on emails, I’d watch people from afar … and then I’d very happily retreat to my cottage, my blackberries and bees again.
Did it rain? Pretty much every day. But how wonderful that was - sometimes it felt that the weather was changing six times a day. After day one I had learned to never leave the cottage without rain gear. Everything that I experienced during those days and weeks, inevitably flowed into the story. The hills, the weather, the river, the Maumturks mountain range. The nearest peak, rising right behind the cottage, was the Knocknagur (peak is a big word, mind you, the Knocknagur soars to a towering 310 meters above sea level) … naturally, in the story, the Knocknagur (and what a beautiful name, too!) became my giant’s home.
Or take all the stories about John Huston’s The Quiet Man, that have remained Connemara lore since it was filmed on location in the 1950s. And so it came naturally that one particular fairy in my novel would shapeshift to look and act like John Wayne’s Quiet Man. Then there was an actual fairy mound not far from the cottage - and so that, too, became an important place for the story … and so on and so forth - whatever was there, was inspirational and often found its way, one way or another, into what would become The Sweet-Maker of Connemara.
Most of us are neither famous nor independently wealthy. Most of us need a day job to pay the bills and put food on the table. And so an experience like the one recounted here is, if it ever becomes possible, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When and if that happens, don’t pressure yourself. Go with the flow. Allow yourself to do everything and nothing and whatever’s on paper at the end of that time, is just fine.
I was lucky, no doubt. The many Connemara circumstances conspired to come together in exceedingly fruitful ways for me during that time - everything enriched, everything fueled. And if I wanted to add actual fuel, then I had no qualms about helping myself to a shot of peated Connemara in the middle of the morning. Why the heck not? It was my time to do with as I pleased!
The gift of that one month out there on my own will always remain with me as an out-of-this-world incredibly rewarding and deeply fulfilling experience. If you’ve done this yourself, you’ll know exactly how I’ve felt. And if you haven’t, then my wish for you is that you’ll be able to take such an opportunity at some point.
But remember - key to a wonderful experience is no attachment to outcome!