Six Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Writing Residency

Have a specific goal you want to achieve, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get to everything. I think, on this residency, I had too many disparate things I wanted to get done on the trip, and I didn’t quite have the physical fortitude after a few days to be as efficient as I am at home. I did my “have-to” work first, and my “want-to” work second. I think it’s okay to have an adventure and new experiences at a residency, because even if you don’t achieve everything, you’ll still have devoted yourself for a bit of dedicated time to your art, and that is great. (This residency resulted in a review, some pages on the PR for Poets book, and a good handful of new poems, but my last residency, I think I mentioned, I barely wrote anything at all, and spent most of my time trying to do watercolors. And that was okay. No one was harmed, except my sketch pad…)
Take advantage of the specific area you’re in for your residency – I don’t know about how but I noticed some of the scholars barely left the campus – which was indeed beautiful and had a water view – but San Juan Island is really a place best explored by car – it’s larger and hillier and the best views and features farther apart than you might think, hard to access even by moped or bike – and after a few hours of reading and writing each morning, and before a few hours reading and writing after dark, I needed a couple of hours – even with my sprained ankle and mad-evil virus – to get out and about and experience the amazing sights and sounds on offer. Seeing whales, foxes, eagles, otters, seals – they may not directly feature in what I wrote, but I’m sure seeing the different vistas – Lime Kiln Point’s rocky outcropping with a 360-degree view of the ocean, American Camp’s driftwood beaches and meadows – helped stimulate my mind more than just staying in the (admittedly pretty sweet) little cabin. If you’re a food person (and don’t have my allergies,) this extends to going out and getting a coffee and scone at the local coffee shop, or trying the local seafood the cute little organic restaurant that only the locals know about that someone recommended. Residencies aren’t just for reading, studying and writing – they’re also about getting you out of your routine and having adventures.
Bring the things from home you need to sleep – white noise machine, your pillow, special pajamas – if you’re anything like me, you’ll have trouble sleeping in a new weird bed that’s not your own, so do what you can to make yourself comfortable. Sleep is important for mental power!
Be social. I wasn’t great at this this time around because I was sick so many of the days and I didn’t want to get my fellow scholars sick, but my short conversations with the other residents and the staff were always rewarding and interesting. There is a lot of silence on a residency – as I mentioned in previous posts, the no phone, no television, no internet thing can get to you if you’re an extrovert who’s used to a lot of background noise while they work – so sometimes these small interactions can help get you inspired and remind you you’re still part of humanity.
Don’t worry about how you look, but be prepared for multiple weather situations and “the unforeseen.” Seriously. I know, for me, it’s hard to let go of all the little things we end up doing to look good for people, even going to the grocery store, but at this residency, the wildlife didn’t care what I looked like, and if I wore yoga pants and Ugg boots every day, no one was going to start a scandalous whisper. You want to be comfortable, too, so be sure you pack for the weather – ours on San Juan Island was so changeable, I was glad I brought sunscreen, a warm coat, a raincoat, boots appropriate for mud, and multiple kinds of scarves. I had to wrap myself in a blanket I packed on the ferry on the way home, because it was so cold and wet and windy, even on the ferry, that I couldn’t get warm. Pack for all emergencies, too – a flashlight or candles (d’oh – we forgot ours and were unprepared when the power went out), a first aid kit, all possible meds (I ended up taking extra allergy and nausea medications, my nebulizer, plus a ton of Pepto Bismol) – you don’t want to be scrambling around an unfamiliar town after hours trying desperately to find a Benadryl or a special kind of asthma inhaler. So, bottom line – less makeup, more Emergen-C and sunscreen.
Bring a variety of reading materials, because you never know what will inspire you or when you will have down time on your hands. Some days I was in the mood to read difficult fiction or poetry, and other days to read magazines. A Kindle was useful on the boat ride and ferry wait – it took us about four hours to get over, and five and a half hours to get back (with the airport trip, we could have been to LA in the same amount of time to get to this nearby island), and if you have an airplane ride, a Kindle saves a lot of packing space (as long as you can charge it…) And don’t forget chargers for your laptop, reading device, and cell! And if you write by hand, be sure to have a little notebook and pen you can carry that’s not too heavy on days you might want to hike and write outside.

I’m tired and ready to get back into my routine, but happy I went. Good luck to you and I hope this was helpful! If you have more residency tips, please leave them in the comments!

PS. A deer was waiting for us on our street when we finally got home! And I’m still sick. But so worth it!

Day 6 of the San Juan Island Residency at Whiteley – Otters, golden eagles, and waterlogged

Wildlife sightings: two golden eagles swooping overhead, on opposite sides of the island; one black fox and lots of large rabbits, several otters, including a baby who was chirping because he was left behind his faster family. This was our last visit to American Camp beach, and I was happy to go clomping along the driftwood and sand with my cane (!!) because I got to see some otters frolicking along the waterline. It was raining heavily til about 2 PM, when a little sunlight squeaked through. Of course the deer were out and about as usual. Of all these, I only got a snap of the otters in the ocean at play. I’ve also included a picture of some art from our cabin – photograph of fox kits.

Now the rain is pouring down again. There was enough rain and wind this morning to knock down a third of the dahlias in the dahlia garden we took a picture of a few days back; in people’s gardens the sunflowers were drooping down, defeated. When you get rain out here, it can be a fleeting drizzle or a real gusty downpour, and unfortunately, we’re looking at the latter.

The campus is a bit of a ghost-town, as two of the scholar cabins next to me are now empty, and no one is around – even the dining hall was closed this morning. We’re packing up and taking stock. Even though this is day 6 we managed to see some new wildlife, which was exciting – I didn’t get everything done with my book that I wanted, but I’m so beat physically that intellectually I’m worn out, if that makes sense – no poem last night, and I couldn’t stop closing my eyes when I was trying to read, so maybe it is time to go home. I don’t sleep well normally, so sleeping in a strange place on a strange bed, well, that’s like basically saying hello to no sleep for the duration. I’m not a great traveler, as I’ve said before, I’m not as hale and hearty as I’d like to be. But even so, it was a wonderful gift to be out here and to have time for things like writing and reading and fox-and-whale-and-seal sightings.

Day 5 of San Juan Island Residency at Whiteley Center

I got off to a bit of a slow start today, but did have a few morning visitors at my front door! Bambi and friends! It is not an exaggeration that we see dozens of deer a day here, many so close you could touch them. We have two families – one doe and fawn, and another doe with three fawns. I decided to snap a few so you could see them, as I’ve been leaving them out of previous day’s records unfairly!

We ended up at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art in the afternoon to see the amazing suspended terra cotta sculptures, meant to look as if they were floating in water, by an artist named Kathy Ventner. It’s amazing that she did not cast them, but shaped them by hand from photographs of her models underwater in their regular every-day clothing. Her level of detail is amazing, and the space in the museum atrium is lovely.

No orcas to be found anywhere around the island, but my little brother and his wife, who came to the island for the weekend, did go whalewatching and see a humpback whale, which is pretty great. Then we had dinner at a wonderful organic restaurant (with lots of gluten-free options, naturally) called The Backdoor Kitchen. We went down by the ferry to see if there were otters (apparently they like the drain right by the loading dock?) but no luck, then down to the dock by our cabin where we were greeted by our friendly harbor seal (the same one as yesterday?) who this time poked her little head, out, then twirled around and floated around with her belly and nose up – so cute! My sister-in-law is also a biology fan, so she was fascinated by the floating jellyfish and bioluminescent shrimp in the water, which I hadn’t noticed before. It was great that they finally got see San Juan Island after living nearby for almost a year! It’s one of my top places – along with La Conner in tulip season – that I send people to because it illustrates why I love the Northwest and what makes it so unique, and part of what I missed when I spent two years in California. I don’t know if I would want to live here year round (see previous post re: power outages and such) but it’d be a great place (a girl can dream?) to have a summer home (maybe someday?), or for anyone who really wanted to live away from it all.

There was a fox much closer to the Whiteley Center today – running across the street that leads to the center! I didn’t know they were here, but of course it makes sense, surrounded as we are by fields and woods and water. This island continues to be full of surprises. I thought I’d post another red fox picture…

My time here is wrapping up, and I wonder about my productivity levels, whether I’ve accomplished enough. I’ve written a couple of pages of book review, a couple of pages of poetry critique, a handful of poems (and of course these daily blog posts), as well as a few pages on the PR for Poets book. I’ve certainly had more than my fair share of nature encounters, I was down with a virus for a couple of days, and brought far more reading material than I could actually get to in the time allotted (better than bringing too little, I guess!) Part of me has already started to look forward to returning home to my routines, my own bed, my cat…normalcy, even though “normal” has its own stresses (house hunting!) and irritations. Still, it was nice to be here, to have this time to claim as an artist and writer, to say “this is important and I’m going to spend time with my writing – in a residency which happens to afford a spectacular cabin in the woods on the water on a really fabulously unique Northwest island.” Getting away from it all can be overrated – but it can also afford perspective and give shape to new ideas (maybe a new manuscript?)

Day 4 of the San Juan Island Residency: Seals, Black Foxes, Island Constraints, and Rain

The power stayed out last night til almost one in the morning. I kept myself entertained by going into the generator-powered library and working on a book review and a friend’s packet of poems til everything came back. The internet hasn’t been working since then either. It’s raining today which will probably put a stop to my sight-seeing activities.

I’m wondering how productive I really am without internet, television, telephone. I mean, I have gotten some work done, but more than I usually do? I’m not sure! I think some technology helps keep us linked in to the things that matter to us – researching a poem, submitting, or being able to check things like e-mail – and helps me do things more quickly. It’s almost like the internet has become an extension of our brains as we work! And television – having it on puts me in a meditative state that allows me to focus better on other tasks. I miss it! I know that’s not a usual poet thing to say. I feel a tad bit constrained by the silence. I feel grumpy that the one grocery store on the island doesn’t stock most of my admittedly difficult – gluten free, organic, etc – staples and has nine-day-old chicken in its meat section (now that I can eat again, I have opinions about the grocery store!) It’s not like I can run down the street and check elsewhere.

I talked to one of the fellow scholars today, a biologist studying the effects of climate change on butterfly models – though he says the Pacific Northwest is not great for butterflies, so he mostly does mathematical modeling work up here. (PS Since I have only seen yellow swallowtail butterflies and cabbage moths anywhere in the Seattle area, I have to agree! The Midwest and South – and California – all had much more diverse and healthy butterfly populations.) Anyway, that made me think of an idea of a poem about math and butterflies.

I slept in today as we were without internet until later in the afternoon, and didn’t feel very energetic anyway, plus it was drizzling outside. In the late afternoon we made another trek to Lime Kiln Point, this time empty of whales or porpoises, but we did run into our white-tipped black fox friend there again in a totally different part of the park. Then we came home and waited on the dock for our seals. Glenn got very close to this one, who, in Glenn’s opinion, was breathing heavily at him. The whole day was a bit dreary but that was fine – I think I was tired out anyway since we were up past 2 AM last night waiting for our sheets to get dry after the power outage.

The power outage also inspired a bit of an apocalypse poem about being in a library on a generator while the rest of the world was cold and dark and silent. I’m still working on Amy Uyematsu’s book review and need to start peeking at my own book manuscript and the PR book if I’m going to make any progress there. I’m frustrated that I haven’t gotten more accomplished in four days, sans cat or house-hunting or doctor’s appointments or any other time-sucking activities. Were my expectations too high? The last residency I went to – some years ago – I think all I accomplished were some bad watercolors, so this beats that!

I finally used the lavish study room, with water views no less, that they’ve assigned me in the Whiteley Center, with big desks and bookcases, after I got the energy to get dressed and bring a drink and drag my books and computer out there this evening (it’s a bit of a shlep from the cabin to the center in the rainy dark for someone with a sprained ankle, thank goodness for Glenn’s help.) I wrote one poem and started a second, finished my review, and even got to look a bit at my apocalypse MS – trying to decide whether to shrink it (it’s 69 8×12 pages now, which is a little long) and whether I’ve got the seed of a new MS there. Tonight I’m going to sleep closer to my regular time – around 1 AM instead of after 2 AM – and I realize I’m more of a night owl than most of the other scholars here. I sleep in later and work best in the evening, after 8 PM – that’s kind of how I am at home, too. The best wildlife spotting on San Juan Island – from whales to birds to deer and foxes – seems to be right at sundown (and probably sunup too, it’s just that I’m not out to see it) so we make sure we’re out and about right around sunset. Rain forecast all weekend. My left ankle looks worse than ever, so I better stay off of it tomorrow. Good thing I brought a lot of reading material!

Residency on San Juan Island’s Whiteley Center Day 3

(Sorry for the delay in posting – we were out of power, then out of internet until just now…sigh…joys of being on an island?)

Day 3

Today I woke with 101 temperature, decided to sleep in. Sipped herbal tea with honey until I had enough energy to go out into the sunshine to visit a local garden, currently filled with beautiful dahlias. We took home a huge bunch of pink dahlias for about $10. Went about Friday Harbor’s shops and grocery store to pick up supplies (cute pens! and groceries) and came home to rest some more. Then went back up to Lime Kiln Point, only to arrive just as a bunch of orcas had started to appear – along with a couple of tour buses – and they were even more active than last time, this time jumping and flipping and twirling, five of six times in a row. (We caught none of this on camera, I’m afraid, so I’m substituting this photo from a San Juan Tourism web site. Seriously, though, how fun!) We came home and rested again; I read, tried to check e-mail – internet spotty all today. Then off to American Camp Beach in the evening to see some rabbits and foxes in action. We had a very close encounter with this red fox, who was not at all afraid of us, even holding eye contact with his huge golden eyes for a few seconds. Fox encounters! And hundreds and hundreds of scampering bunnies. It turned dark on the beach as we left, just a sliver of moon in the sky. Now home to write, drink some hot soup and cranberry juice with fizzy water (my personal health-strengthening elixir) and maybe read a bit.

Day three and I finally feel like we’ve relaxed and hit our stride a bit. Maybe being sick I pushed myself a little less, and that always helps. That’s the thing about shorter trips – just as soon as you adjust to your new surroundings, you’re home again! Today felt unrushed, with time to read and write during the day, and the sunshine a pleasant bonus, since the weather report had been touting rain all day and there were threatening clouds in the distance. Weekend of all rain ahead, they’re saying!

At 10 PM the power went out in Friday Harbor, since I didn’t pack candles or a flashlight, and I had just put a load of our sheets and towels in the dryer, I was out of luck! How fun is it to be on a cane in the pitch blackness with no light source? Not fun at all! Not so great for reading and writing, either. Here’s hoping the power comes back on before morning – all part of the adventure, I suppose! (The facility caretaker came by with a flashlight after I called, so I at least had that!)