Weekend Retreat at Bois-le-Comte
Summary of events by members who attended
Posted on the: 26 Apr 2008
By: guest editorial - Celeste Koehler (and other attendees)
Welcome to the Creative Writing Forum, the web site of the Creative Writing Club (CWC) Luxembourg (and so much more). We have some very exciting news to share with you.
On April 11th, five members of the CWC attended a weekend retreat arranged by our club leader, Roderick Dunnett. The setting was La Ferme Bois-le-Comte in Villiers devant Orval in southern Belgium, just minutes from the French border. Surrounded by farmland, fields, and forests the hundred-year-old farm was the perfect locale to inspire, nurture, and encourage our creativity and artistic desires. We spent many hours by the wood-burning stove in our private common room engaged in writing exercises, working on our own personal writing projects, sharing our work, and connecting with the writer within ourselves and our fellow scribes.
The beautiful countryside and some lively discussions were enjoyed each day as we took to the trails to work off the hearty vegan meals and refill our creative ink wells through nature's inspiration.
By the close of the weekend, we each came away with a personal goal intended to promote our own writing ambitions and the pledged support of our fellow writers to encourage us in this endeavour. Our weekend at the farm, Bois-le-Comte was an affirming and enriching experience that each of us look forward to repeating. As for myself, my hiking boots, pen, and notepad are already packed.
Celeste Koehler
The first retreat of the CWC?* Organized by Roderick Dunnett with the assistance of Celeste Koehler-- was in my opinion, an experience that should be repeated frequently. A group of writers who have always been friendly one to the other, we grew progressively more comfortable together as the hours, the days, rolled by. Our personalities began to fuse and we gently learned that each of us is capable of overstepping our own boundaries without harming the individual fragile persona of The Writer. Perhaps the vegan? macrobiotic? diet, the isolated but lush and wet surroundings, and the farm's dedication to alternative forms of human interaction and creative therapies assisted the transparency of our moods and the limpidity of our thoughts.
My only regret was a certain amount of personal laziness, and in general we could have worked ourselves harder, more intensively and longer. That will happen next time around, hopefully.
Dana Rufolo
(*editors note: actually it is the second. The first retreat was organised by former President Kim Berquist at the Abbaye D'Orval)?
The anticipation of attending a weekend writers' workshop in a bucolic setting was both appealing and challenging. Spending two and a half days in the bucolic setting of an old converted farm in the lush Belgium countryside was a definite attraction. On the other hand, a workshop held the connotation of a mental workout. And while Elisa assured me that I would be welcomed as a spouse in any of the writing activities I wished, I knew there would be expectations to “produce”. Given my joyful trepidations upon the starting of the weekend, I can happily state that “all is well that ends well”.
Regardless of the intermittent rain, some of which was quite strong, the vegan culinary fare and the Spartan accommodations (albeit well heated with a massive ceramic stove in the dining area) I was welcomed by the group as an occasional interloper and interlocutor. In the process I eked out a couple of nascent written pieces as well as provided ideas and encouragement to the other writers. Last but not least, I took walks in the woods (alone and in groups), which cleared my mind and filled my soul (stopping at the Hostellerie d'Orval for drinks filled another quarter) and visited the intriguing and enigmatic Basilica of Avioth. Now I am ready for the next writers' workout, I mean workshop.
Lou Evangelista
The weekend of our retreat at the East-West Centre at Bois-le-Comte was a high and the return to daily humdrum preoccupations a low. I have stored the energy generated in those two days and hope to harness it as soon as pressing mundane matters are out of the way. The pressure of writing fast in common shared creative exercises that we worked on over the two days did me much good. It released a stream of consciousness, and the torrent of words cleared the logjam of stifling ideas. It allowed concepts to move on and grow.
I already felt this freedom straightaway after the first exercises. They seemed to enrich the work of all of us in later exercises and to inspire our free writing. I hope we meet again soon to carry on the good progress achieved.
Roderick Dunnett (El Capitano)
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Editorial
