Dreaming of a Writer's Retreat

My friend bought this as a gift to herself for her sixtieth birthday. It’s a fully restored 1946 Rascal travel trailer. She plans to join a group of vintage-trailer groupies who travel caravan-style to some of America's best campgrounds.

When I saw the Rascal, I thought: WRITER’S RETREAT! How cool would it be to haul this 12-foot writing hut to, say, Walden Pond (as it existed in Thoreau’s time, of course; writers don't need 21st Century tourists hanging around). I could sit in the Rascal, soak up the peaceful surroundings, and write to my heart’s content.

I fall asleep, almost every night, imagining the perfect place to write. I've always dreamed of having my very own writer’s retreat somewhere in a secluded woods overlooking a quiet, inland lake. No people. No sounds other than the gentle breeze rustling through the trees, tiny waves lapping the shore, birds singing, maybe an occasional grunt or howl from a wild animal, just to keep things interesting.

The other day, I got serious about turning my dream into reality. I Googled “writer’s retreats,” and I saw these. The web page said that I could order one and have it built in my garden (that is, if my garden were big enough for a retreat).

Here's the description for this one:

This wonderful garden retreat draws inspiration from the modest summerhouse in George Bernard Shaw's garden. This tiny, converted shed was where he created many of his masterpieces, including the Oscar winning screenplay for "Pygmalion" and the play "St Joan", for which he was to win the Nobel Prize for literature.


And this one:


The refurbished tool shed at the bottom of Virginia Woolf's garden forms the inspiration for the Reading Room. Despite living in privileged surroundings it was this distinctive outbuilding that was to provide her with the ideal place in which to write, think and relax.

If George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf could have their own little retreats, then why can't I? (That's a rhetorical question if you're thinking of leaving a comment.)

I needed to know more. The web site offered an online brochure, so I clicked on its link (you can, too, by clicking here). I discovered that the manufacturer is in the UK, and the prices were listed only in pounds. I liked that. I don’t do “pounds.” Unless you consider my weight, I’m sure that I don't have enough pounds to splurge on one of these retreats, let alone have it shipped across the ocean and built in my backyard. So, I left that web site and decided to keep hanging onto my dream. Who knows? Maybe when my friend isn't caravanning around the country, she'll let me write in her Rascal.

What do you dream about
when you hear the words “writer’s retreat?”

Click here to see how this woman turned her Airstream trailer into a studio.

3 Things I Learned About Style From Charles Dickens

If you follow my blog, then you know that a new project I’ve been working on (A Charles Dickens Devotional, Thomas Nelson, December 2011) renewed my interest in Charles Dickens’ writing style. Last month, I wrote a post about his descriptive writing, and today I’m following up with a few thoughts about his use of rhetorical devices—language designed to achieve a particular effect.

Here are three things I’ve learned about style from Charles Dickens:

1. Antithesis is a useful tool for subtle character development.
Antithesis—contrasting ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences—can help to suggest what a character is thinking, not only about herself, but also about another character, as in this example from Great Expectations.

"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!"

2. Polysyndeton can effectively move readers toward an important moment.
Polysyndeton—repetition of conjunctions in close succession—can get readers’ attention by adding emphasis where needed and by making the story flow more quickly and smoothly into a key part of the plot. Here is an example of polysyndeton, also from Great Expectations. Notice how the repetition of the conjunction “and” picks the reader up and carries him along.

A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir.".

3. Personification expanded beyond a few words gives a specific object greater interest.
Personification—the representation of a thing or idea as a person or with human characteristics—is an elementary rhetorical device, but Dickens’ expands it and uses it to get readers to focus on a particular item, like these Spanish onions in A Christmas Carol.

Ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by.

Charles Dickens gave great thought to his words. He crafted each sentence carefully with a specific purpose and with his readers in mind. We can improve our own writing by studying his style and incorporating it wisely, carefully, and sparingly into our work.