Alone time is necessary. Alone time is perilous.

Also, two poems for New Year's.

In twenty-plus years of writing for a living, I have learned two things:

1. When I need to jump-start a project or get big chunks written, it's really helpful to get away and get significant time alone.

2. Significant time alone can pull me into a whirl-hole of self-absorption that makes it nearly impossible to jump-start a project or get big chunks written.

For me, it is the great paradox of the writing life, the need to be alone competing with the truth that the inside of your brain can be a neighborhood you don't want to be alone in.

You're there at your desk, trying to work out the next sentence, and before you know it, you're thinking about yourself instead: your failures, your ego, your word-count goal. You speculate on how you're going to feel when you make your goal. You get a jump-start on the self-loathing you'll feel if you fall short. You wonder what people are going to think when they read what you've written. You wonder if anybody will even read it. You question whether anything you've ever written was actually good. You buck yourself up, remembering that, yes, you've written plenty of good pieces–a few brilliant ones, in fact. Which makes you suspect that you've already used up all your brilliance. Then you ponder Edgar Allen Poe, who died penniless and alone in a Baltimore gutter. You'll never write as well as Edgar Allen Poe. In short, it takes about forty-five seconds to decide that you're the piece of garbage that the universe revolves around.

A writer needs alone time. I know I have to go into the cave. But I can only go there because I know there are people just outside the cave who are pulling for me, people who need the work that I can only do in the cave. In The Habit Membership, we talk a lot about giving one another a little more courage. Even if writing requires that you get alone, for most of us writing is not really something you can do alone.

That’s why I put together The Focus Retreat, March 16-20, 2025 at the beautiful Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

The idea of The Focus Retreat is simple: you’ll have four days dedicated to focused work on your current work-in-progress, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. You'll have big chunks of time to write, punctuated by three check-ins a day (at breakfast, lunch, and dinner) plus evening events designed to keep the fountain of creativity flowing.

In short, the point of the Focus Retreat is to give you four days in which your only responsibility will be to write. You’ll have alone time, but you won’t be isolated. You’ll have the support, accountability, and fellowship of writer colleagues who are going through the same thing you’re going through.

If completing a writing project is one of your goals for 2025, The Focus Retreat could be a huge boost. Participation is limited to twenty writers, but half of those spots have already been taken. If you want to claim one of the ten remaining spots, now is the time to register.

The $1650 price of the Focus Retreat includes everything except your transportation to the venue. Half ($825) is due at registration, and the other half is due on February 1.

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Two poems for New Year’s Eve

I ran across the following poems by Denise Levertov and Kenneth Patchen, and I thought you might appreciate it as you contemplate the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

For the New Year, 1981
by Denise Levertov

I have a small grain of hope—
one small crystal that gleams
clear colors out of transparency.

I need more.

I break off a fragment
to send you.

Please take
this grain of a grain of hope
so that mine won’t shrink.

Please share your fragment
so that yours will grow.

Only so, by division,
will hope increase,

like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source—
clumsy and earth-covered—
of grace.

At the New Year
by Kenneth Patchen

In the shape of this night, in the still fall
of snow, Father

In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds
and children

In everything that moves tonight, the trolleys
and the lovers, Father

In the great hush of country, in the ugly noise
of our cities

In this deep throw of stars, in those trenches
where the dead are, Father

In all the wide land waiting, and in the liners
out on the black water

In all that has been said bravely, in all that is
mean anywhere in the world, Father

In all that is good and lovely, in every house
where sham and hatred are

In the name of those who wait, in the sound
of angry voices, Father

Before the bells ring, before this little point in time
has rushed us on

Before this clean moment has gone, before this night
turns to face tomorrow, Father

There is this high singing in the air
Forever this sorrowful human face in eternity’s window
And there are other bells that we would ring, Father
Other bells that we would ring.

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• March 16-20. The Focus Retreat, at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville. Get more information and register here.

• February 7-8. The Habit Winter Writers’ Weekend, at North Wind Manor in Nashville. (More information forthcoming, but registration is open.)

• January 21-February 27. Writing Through the Wardrobe: The Horse and His Boy, the 2025 installment of my series of online creative writing classes based on C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (registration opening soon).

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• Virtual Writing Rooms on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

• In The Habit Portfolio: “Sir Galahad and the Golem’s Embrace,” discovered by Reuben Smagglewood. From the Lost Lost Tales of Sir Galahad series.

• Thursday afternoon: Office Hours

• Thursday evening: Waiting on the Word Book Club Discussion

There's a place for you in this vibrant community of writers. Find out more about The Habit Membership here.

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The Habit Podcast is still on Christmas break. It looks forward to seeing you again next week.

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