Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
This month’s mini-project was inspired by last month’s article by Rob Self-Pierson, describing his summer escape to Wales to write (here).
The ‘yes’s…
Do you have a writing escape? If so, is it one place or many? If not, what would you be looking for?
Anywhere that is new to me can be a writing escape, be that a coffee shop, a park bench or a whole other country, somewhere that feels fresh and allows a pad of paper!
What are you escaping from?
I’m escaping the daily habits we so easily fall into; a writing escape offers a break from that and gives me a moment of new perspective on my life and my creativity.
What are you escaping to?
I’m escaping into my imagination, into perhaps a more idealised version of myself and letting that stream of consciousness flow onto the page, unbridled by the minutiae of everyday stresses.
– Harry Ashton-Key
Do you have a writing escape? If so, is it one place or many? If not, what would you be looking for?
My writing escape currently is anywhere I am with my noise-cancelling headphones, while listening to the same song on repeat, currently “THE BLUES” by Vince Staples.
What are you escaping from?
I’m escaping from my audience’s expectations.
What are you escaping to?
I’m escaping to liberation through vulnerability, rawness, and authenticity; as well as escaping to writing that doesn’t centre my own personal experiences.
– Mugabi Byenkya
My immediate response when I read Rob’s piece:
Totally agree with Rob’s sentiments of taking time out, breaking away from usual routine and location. An interruption, a place as intervention, a change of space – all contribute to refreshing the mindset, ways of looking, heightening senses.
I generally have at least two (ideally four) weeks away – not necessarily miles away, could be just an hour up the Dales – to spend time walking, noseying at interesting buildings/architecture/history, chatting with folks – leaving the cranial cabinet alone for a while to filter and fettle ideas.
Always amazed at how much I write, what flows, new directions and inspirations, and how quickly I respond to ideas when absent from familiar surroundings.
– Irene Lofthouse
I’m a gardener so my writing escape is, nonsensically, in my garden, where there are endless distractions and frustrations. I’m trying to escape nature by being in nature, but separate. It’s a losing battle. I watch squirrels creep along like commandos and steal apples whilst I’m tied to a Zoom. Along the decking, my sweet peas are stunted and my runners have no beans. Flies fly in and then annoyingly can’t find a way out. Dragonflies are the worst, their panicked beating reminds me of helicopters hovering high up over the streets of Brixton trying to spot prisoners on the run.
I’m escaping to a quiet place, surrounded by the joys of the garden, a place of infinite inspiration and beauty. I seem destined to share it with creatures small and annoying – but I’m sure they have their uses. Maybe they’re just lonely and want company.
– Alastair Creamer
After my dad died at the start of 2023, I couldn’t write a word, and it was only when I travelled to Sicily in April of this year, and encountered new colours, tastes and scents, that I felt myself coming back to life. Since I’ve been home I’ve begun writing poems – a small start, but I can feel the stirrings of creativity again. I escape into my poetry notebook as often as I can.
– Jill Hopper
Photo by Paul Melki on Unsplash
The ‘no’s
A writing escape? In some ways it makes no sense to me. The more I write the more I realise that writing is a process of connection – to myself, to others, to things that matter. I simply don’t see it as escape. Figuratively or literally.
It’s more like writing in. And that can take place anywhere.
I don’t think I’m ever escaping when I write.
Am I missing out?
– Julia Webb-Harvey
I don’t have a retreat. I find that writing is an escape in itself, and I bet I’m not the only one to think that. For example, when I am writing I lose track of time, and location. I simply escape from the world around me.
But the world doesn’t always make it easy for writers to escape. Many of us in 26 spend a lot of our time being professional writers, rather than the novelists, playwrights, screenwriters or poets we might well rather spend time being. And escaping is as essential when we are professionally writing as it is when we’re writing anything else.
When I started as an advertising copywriter in 1643, I had an office that I shared with my art director. We could close the door, and that was our escape. Then the open-plan office was invented in the latter part of 20th century, and we were all suddenly expected to sit in the same room, or worse at long tables in the same room, and write. No escape. My art director and I used to leave the building and work anywhere else – another room, in the park, in the pub.
You can’t always get away with that behaviour these days when someone else is your boss. Hence, most professional writers own a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. That may well be the only way they can escape. Sad.
When you’re freelance, as I am again, you may well work mostly at home and escaping becomes a different exercise. I now have to escape from the courier who knocks the door, the cat who wants to press a different key from the one I need, the coffee that keeps insinuating itself into my brain and the beach that beckons five minutes away.
Only one way to do it – write.
– Paul White