Once Upon a Time... at Prospect Street

on what my creative process can accommodate

Greetings from Prospect Street Writers House in North Bennington, Vermont, a crazy and luxurious gift of time and space that I have gifted myself, thank you very much. I’ve never done anything like this before, gone to a place where there are no expectations, nothing to “learn” or do. Aside from coming down for dinner at the end of the day, there are no requirements—and even that isn’t a requirement. I’m sure I could bag dinner if I want to, which I don’t.

It’s very different from Gateless writing retreats, which I love and adore and recommend highly. At Gateless retreats, we write in community, cuddled up together to create a Gateless hive of support and creation. I love it. There’s lots of writing but also lots of chatting and connecting. We eat together and write together and hear each other’s stories. I’ve made some of my best friends at Gateless retreats.

At Prospect Street, there’s none of that. You can come to work on your writing, or read all day, or nap or watch porn. I don’t know exactly what my fellow writers are doing (for the record, I don’t think any of them are watching porn but hey! no judgment). People are very quiet. They come and go throughout the day, I think—the only sign of anyone at all is the gentle opening and closing of doors, the occasional running of water. We don’t really talk much about what we’re working on—a novel, memoir, poetry collection—which is sort of a relief. No one is asking: Did you get a lot of work done today? How many words did you write? Did you finish the chapter? And it is so nice not to have to justify how I spent my time. Or defend it. Or disclaim it (I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, or I didn’t get as much done as you did or you did blah blah and blah).

But it’s also scary. At the start of the week, my inner critic was doing somersaults on the ceiling, or maybe jumping jacks. I don’t know. It was bouncy and loud. You have this whole week to yourself, Daisy Florin: how are you going to use it? How will you justify the money spent, the time away from family and sick animals? Will you crack the code on this novel? Write a spectacular essay? Will you PROVE YOURSELF WORTHY?

It is also crazy to be completely off the clock. I wake up when I want (which, let’s be honest, is the same time I wake up every day: 6:30 AM damn it). There are no meals to prepare, animals to feed or clean up after. No children to wave at and shout “I love you!” at as they walk out the door. Aside from making my bed and attending to my personal hygiene, there is nothing I have to do. My computer and stacks of papers are the only things that demand my attention.

And that is fucking scary! Each day, I’ve been jotting down my word count, which I don’t always do and don’t even put that much stock in as a creative metric but it has helped me this week to see if I am making any headway, if without all the distractions of my daily life, most of which let’s be honest I put there myself, I could work in a more directed and sustained way. But I never work like this, alone, silent. I wrote my whole novel, or almost all of it, in the middle of a busy life—and it worked! I liked when my kids came home from school because it meant I could get a fucking break. Did they need a snack? Did they need help with homework? What did they neeeeeeed???

But whoo boy do I see the beauty in a place like Prospect Street. By the middle of the week, I was hooked, on the silence, on the ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Did I want to eat a sleeve of crackers and a handful of raspberries for lunch? Did I want to lay down at 2:30 PM and watch cat videos? Was it lovely to stay off social media and its constant drone of awfulness? Did I get to skip out on Election Day drama? (I voted absentee before I left! don’t worry!)

But I also want to tell you how careening it felt, how time lost all texture. Was it 10AM or 3PM or 7PM? We changed the clocks the day I arrived and I could feel the darkness descending each day at 4:00, pressing down like a weight. One day I stayed in the House all day, leaving only to take a walk around the campus of Bennington College. By the time we were finished with dinner at 6:15, it was pitch dark out and I’d been fiddling with my novel for hours. I was absolutely panicked at the thought of going back to my room so when someone asked if I wanted to walk into town for a beer, I almost quite literally leapt at the invitation. Two hours, one beer and a conversation later, I was ready to crawl back into my twin sizes bed, exhausted by the exertion.

Oh, I want to say more about the critic and how loud he’s been banging on the door this week. At the last Gateless retreat I went to, Suzanne handed out string bracelets that we were supposed to move from wrist to wrist whenever the critic raised its ugly head. Let me tell you, I moved it a lot this week. Writing my first novel was haaaaaard, one of the hardest (but also most joyful) things I’ve done. But writing this one is a whole other beast. Maybe I only had one novel in me, says the critic. Maybe I’m not really a novelist since the only novel I’ve written was drawn so much from my own experience. Maybe I went on instinct last time and actually have no freaking clue what I’m doing. Not smart enough. Not well read enough. Bad at structure and plot….moves bracelet to other wrist.

I leave you today with words from the Prospect Street website: “Enjoy the company of writers only to the extent your creative process can accommodate.” Take this little mantra with you out into the world. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I can’t make it to lunch. My creative process cannot accommodate.” “Forgive me for not coming to that meeting. I’m afraid my creative process could not accommodate.” And so on and so on.

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I am loving leading Gateless salons on Tuesday mornings at 9AM ET. I led one this week from here, and it was so inspiring and grounding. I also popped into Sarah Montana’s session on Wednesday at noon ET. Serena Eastman leads another one on Thursdays at 7PM ET. If you’d like to write in the Gateless container, do it! Sign up and more info is here. And you can always drop me a line if you have questions.

This week, I read Lessons in Chemistry (not linking to it because she’s sold enough damn books) and am midway through Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. On audio, I’m listening to Andrew Ridker’s Hope. I’m also listening to the podcast Once Upon a Time... at Bennington College and it is perfect.