A softly-structured online writing retreat for making progress on your project in good company
When: Monday, September 29 through Thursday, October 2
Where: Zoom
Cost: $0. More on that below, but yes, you can afford this.
Schedule:
2 hour morning focus session (beginning 8:30a Pacific/10:30a Central/11:30a Eastern)
break
1 hour guest speaker/workshop (Monday and Wednesday only, beginning 11:30a Pacific/1:30p Central/2:30p Eastern)
2 hour afternoon focus session (beginning 12:30p Pacific/2:30p Central/3:30p Eastern)
It is not mandatory to come to all sessions: gentle is in the name, eh?
You’re also invited to schedule yourself a field trip and special treat to occur during the days of the retreat to up the ✨retreat✨ factor. Maybe there’s a museum or tourist site near you you haven’t been to in awhile?
Guests are intentionally sandwiched between focus sessions so you have time to build some momentum for the day before you meet them and time after you meet them to digest their offering.
Our Fall 2025 guests:
On Monday, Jami Nakamura Lin will be riffing on self-accomodation.
On Wednesday, Kim Werker will be leading a craft workshop (that’s craft as in summer camp, not Craft as in an MFA) so we each have something tangible as a result of the retreat.
Both Jami and Kim herd writers professionally in addition to being authors themselves.
Two hour focus session structure:
5-10 minutes to settle in, greet each other, set intentions. Transition into focus with a grounding exercise.
45-50 min. focused work time
5 min. break (from :25 after to :30 after)
45 min. focused work time
2 min. to leave Future You a bread crumb trail
10 min. to debrief, workshop any stuckness, celebrate wins, talk shop.
Yes, this is maybe more conversation than you’d like, but getting to know each other means you might get to leave the retreat with a new friendship, and offsets the intrinsic isolation of writing.
Cost/Retreat Origin Story:
Guest speakers are paid by The Friendly Spreadsheet Application Declined Fund. The Fund is the second life of the money I (your retreat host, Kat Sklar) budgeted to attend a summer 2025 residential writing workshop. Alas, both Tin House and Bread Loaf declined my applications, so I decided to DIY instead. Fall 2025 is the second writing retreat sponsored by The Fund. If you’d like to chip in to help cover the guest speakers/fund future retreats, or you just find it easier to commit deeply when there are financial stakes, you’re welcome to Venmo @friendlySS with “retreat”.
About Your Host:
When not working on my memoir project or being bossed around by my cats, I run The Friendly Spreadsheet, where I help individuals and small businesses level up their financial skills. I’m a lifelong resident of Portland, OR; the only thing keeping me from being a walking nonbinary meme is my dislike of iced coffee.
Special thanks to Jeff Jacobson, Amanda Littauer, and Jami Nakamura Lin for their help with retreat design and verbiage.