Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash
As a creative, carving out time to work on your craft is important. Just like you will take time out to study or go on vacation when you want to, you can also think about planning the perfect artist’s residency or writing retreat for yourself. If this is something you’d love to do, here’s how to get started.
1. Know Why You Want to Do It
First of all, it’s always important to think about your reasons for wanting to do this. Are you looking to make headway on a book that you want to write? Do you need more time to expand creatively? Do you need a break to focus on exploring new things and trying new ideas? Setting a goal for your artist’s residency can help you to ensure that you make the right plans for it in the first place.
2. Choose a Beautiful Location
With your goal in mind, you can then focus on the right setting for it. This can be quite different for everyone. Maybe you want to stay in a stunning Williamsburg hotel and be in the heart of a creative district for all the inspiration you need? Maybe you want to book a remote Airbnb in the French countryside to be away from it all and in the middle of nature? It’s all about knowing what will light you up creatively.
3. Focus on a Creative Itinerary
Now, as much as the idea of taking an artist’s residency or heading on your own self-imposed writing retreat may feel like a treat, you need to take it seriously. If you’re too open with your time, you may find that you procrastinate more than you’d like! But the whole point in doing this is to deepen your craft or work on a set piece, or whatever your goal is. So, it’s important to come up with a rough idea of how this is going to work.
4. Minimize Distractions
When you’re alone with your thoughts, it can feel eerie. This is where distractions come in. You may find yourself checking your phone a million times or suddenly feel the need to do a bunch of laundry loads! But this isn’t going to help you to get any work done! Instead, you need to make sure that you’re working without distraction, setting boundaries for yourself, and creating uninterrupted writing sprints that force you to get into the flow!
5. Go All in on Your Growth
Ultimately, if you’re keen to do this, and really do it, then you have to go all in. It can be expensive and a little unnerving to take time out from your everyday life to do this. So make it count! Sure, there will be days when you feel off, and you aren’t producing as much as you thought you would, but that’s normal. Just make sure that you dust yourself off and really throw yourself into things whenever the slump ends. Force it if you have to! Practicing your craft is what will make you a better writer.
Image by Welcome to All ! ツ from Pixabay
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