“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will,” said George Bernard Shaw.

During your time at an Editing in Paradise workshop or retreat, you will have daily opportunities to release and use that imagination and make it work to create something memorable and captivating.

You will be guided into a meditative state each morning, and given the tools to do a freewrite — a well-regarded and highly successful tool for tapping into your imagination — your stream of thoughts and feelings. It’s an effective writing tool for writing whatever comes to you, without hesitation; in an incessant stream. And while this may seem to be a recipe for producing… well, nonsense, once you have the hang of it, it can be a powerful fountain of ideas. In the meditation exercises, free writing becomes an ally and friend and creating has never been easier.

No matter how you nourish your particular creative process —mindmapping, journaling, seeing what comes or plotting each scene, or more — we will do our best to accommodate you, as well as share and introduce you to new techniques. You may  discover even better ways, so feel free to share. You gotta stay creative about being creative.

“… In my experience, the angel does, almost always, come. If I keep faith. On some days, keeping faith means simply staying there, when more than anything else  I want to get out of that room. It sometimes means going up without hope and without energy and turning on my computer.

And, at the end of two or three hours, and without hope and without energy, I find that I have indeed written some sentences that wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t gone up to write them. And — what is even more surprising — these sentences written without hope or energy often turn out to be just as good as the ones I wrote with hope and energy.”

Gail Godwin, ‘Rituals and Readiness’ in National Book Awards: The Writing Life