Top shelf challenge entries in a library of: Retreat

We're taking the prompt and exploring it from every angle. Here are this month's challenge winners.

Hello, writers. Or, readers.

This Library post comes with a small apology, in that it’s a week later than planned. Behind-the-scenes, things have felt very Big in the Not A Write Off world. We’ve been across to East Anglia and back again, experienced a death in the family, and pulled tight over the Easter weekend. It has been necessary and important and as such, priorities rearranged. Thank you for bearing with me. You are good eggs.

And so we begin.

✍ You may be here because you took part in the three-minute writing challenge this month. You may be here because you’re curious about what someone can come up with in three-minutes. You may want to read something excellent, but you don’t have the capacity for long reads right now. You are in the right place.

I have curated this Library Shelf of Challenge Winners from entries sent in response to the prompt: retreat. Some came in straight away, some came in right before the deadline. I know that regulars carve out a little bit of time in the week to spend with the prompt and I love the idea of saving it for when you really need a moment to yourself.

In fact, I used it too. After five days of ‘bitty’ work redrafting chapter eleven of my novel, I needed to shake the clunkiness out of my fingertips (because spending thirty minutes on one sentence is of no use to anyone). I’ve included it right at the end, in case you’re curious.

If you found it liberating too, I’m so glad. Sometimes, giving yourself just three-minutes to write without any expectation is a real gift.

Honestly? Reading these entries was a gift for me.

There are a thousand ways that we can retreat. We can retreat away from crowds, or into one. We can retreat from noise, or if silence suffocates, we can retreat into sub-woofers and speakers. We can swap housemates for house martins, colleagues for calm, and towns for turquoise waves that lap around our ankles. We can retreat and no one knows where we’ve gone, because the place we go to exists wholly in our heads.

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*IMPORTANT - this post is too long for a single email, so if you’re reading this in your inbox and it cuts off, jump over to the Substack site or read on the app for the best experience.

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This month, I saw a pattern amongst our entries. Writers who wanted to retreat back into themselves, to a time when they felt held. We also had entries that reflected a need to drown out the noise, to follow instinct rather than information.

We set a record for most entries by new writers. This is bold, brave, and very cool. You know what? I couldn’t be prouder to see those words tiptoeing out into the world. That’s the magic of three minutes!

✨ Want to give yourself an additional challenge? ✨

The wonderful thing about writing is that it can be reworked, or revisited. Who says the challenge has to stop here? If you want to see where a few more moments of focus takes you, consider this:

A comedic take:

Take another look at the retreat that you described. Most likely, you’ve written about something that would soothe, benefit, or nourish you.

What if it did the opposite?

Imagine you are stood on the dock, ready to jump on a boat that will take you to the island retreat of your dreams. Except, you get on the wrong boat. What would your version of a retreat from hell look like?

Have fun with this prompt - think ‘fish-out-of-water’ humour - and see where another three-minutes takes you!

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The challenge will be taking a break until I have finished the current edit of my next novel. Thank you for bearing with me!

💡 Whilst I am away, I will be hosting a workshop at 20:00 BST on Sunday 14th April all about How to Outline Your Novel.

Paid subscribers will automatically receive an invite and recording.

£15 for anyone else.

If you want to join in as a perk of a paid subscription (cheapest rate is equivalent to £2.88 per month) you can do that using the button below.

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Now, onto the winning entry!

Okay, let’s get onto it! Go get your favourite treat. Line this post up amongst some of your favourite Substack reads, and get lost in new voices, new worlds, and perhaps an discovery or two of your own.

The Winner -

arden w. einsley

Retreat. c. 1300 from the word retrete: ‘a step backwards’ | ‘withdrawing’ | ‘calling back.’

But a calling back to what? What lies behind? When I step backwards without looking, what waits to catch me? Has the landscape changed since I traversed it? Have I changed it?

I believed once that I was porous. That I walked through the world like soil or tissue—an absorbent lining for earthen bodies—inhaling the waters of the living, padding the bedding of the lost. I was a penetrable vessel, a walking stillness for weary souls—a retreat as tender and soft as a grave.

Until the waters I’d consumed froze over and the ravaged pieces of me sunk back into my depths like stones. My soul returned to a winter-ridden torpor it had not witnessed since the womb. And when spring came with the creaking, cracking thaw of my heart, I awoke to find I was an oyster—a delicate collection of wet organs encased in bone. I am impenetrable save the seas I choose to siphon for nourishment as I filter phytoplanktons through my cilia in search of toxins only I can alchemise into pearls. In community, I am a bed—a defence against the storm waves—but alone, I am a retreat for no one by my own heart.

There are so many lines that I love about this piece. The bombardment of questions, the self-reflection, the interweaving of the organic and abstract. There’s a beautiful conflict between the individual and the collective that I really felt. Who knew that oysters could trigger such questions!

Here is Arden’s original note. I’m sure you’ll re-read it as many times as I did. Go and give the original note some love. Telling someone that you loved their writing is such a wonderful gift to offer.

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The Top Shelf

These entries take us into nature and out of the noise that often clouds our thoughts. From home to the gentle breeze that tempts us outside. They all tell us something about what it means to give yourself space and make for excellent reading.

Don’t forget to show the writers some love!

💕

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1.

‘What is a retreat if not 

receding water:

A slowly rescinded

invitation to "Join me 

at the shore?"

If only I could,

following the waves,

fling myself back into

my own murky depths,

declining: "Thanks, I think 

I'll stay home."'

Kim Buchwald

I love the undulation of this piece, which so cleverly mimics the same waves that pull the reader back and forth. There’s a quiet acceptance here that makes me feel like the tides will make good if only we let go.

Kim writes at The Art of Good Enough, which is rich with essays that encourage us to show compassion to ourselves. Take a look below.

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2.

‘Last week’s warmth caused me to ditch my socks, 

to shed my jacket, 

to fully expose my winter white arms to the sun.  

Such a fine and unexpected March day.  

The ground is clear of snow but dusty.  

People say we need rain, 

but could we just enjoy the sun and the warm breeze?  

Just one day that more than hints of spring in Minnesota?

Today I retreat, into my warm down coat, into my thick fleece gloves and hat, into the warmth of my writing room where I watch the brutal wind whip the snow across the street.’

Eunice Woodberry

Oh, for the first warm day of Spring! Eunice has captured that unfurling warmth that comes with sunshine on bare skin so well, but we are often fooled with false starts when it comes to the seasons. This poem taught me patience, to trust that the warm days will come more frequently. We just have to wait.

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3.

‘A nun closed her cell door

pressing her back against its solidness

She breathed deeply

alone at last, comfortable,

She thought about a name for this place

Her feeling, her retreat within a retreat

Silence, sanctuary, solitude

She looked at the plain wooden cross

the only adornment on the bare white walls

Almost heaven

A haven’

Amber Hawkswood

We go somewhere else entirely with Amber’s piece, which challenges our idea of what a retreat looks like and whether we can truly be at piece even if our life is dedicated to reflection. Retreating from noise and wider society is one thing, but we also need to retreat for no one other than ourselves.

Amber writes poems about almost anything and you can be sure that spending time with her words will leave you thinking and feeling more than before.

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4.

‘‘I thought I’d find you up here,’ Liam said as he walked into the bedroom to see me lying on the bed holding my phone above my head.

‘This house isn’t that big and I wasn’t downstairs where else would I be?’ I asked, lowering my phone and looking at him.

In the half hour since I had retreated to my room at my own birthday party I had forgotten what Liam looked like. A crisp black shirt with the top three buttons undone, just on the wrong side of decent. His shirtsleeves rolled up to just above his elbow. Dark jeans that fitted his thick thighs perfectly. His hair an artful mess. The silver of his fake wedding ring the only hint of colour against him. He was a walking wet dream.

‘You could have left the house completely.’

‘Seems like more effort than it’s worth when we’ve banned people from coming upstairs. Speaking of which I think you still owe me a birthday present.’

A hint of a smile teased the corners of his mouth.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Come over here and find out.’’

Sophie Thomas

Well, well, well, Sophie, we’ve got a little spice in the room! This is a retreat of a different kind—one of impulse and intimacy—of ignoring the obligations that have us set in routines to pursue what feels good and right. I loved it!

Sophie writes at The Giraffe Files and regularly works on fiction. If you’re looking for writing that wraps you round it’s little finger, look no further. She’s got you.

There’s a sense of tension in the air, like balls of yarn have been hooked and pulled taut across the room, between the bookshelf and the baby’s cot, the fireplace and the doorframe. In the middle, I sit, big-bellied like a spider, typing and typing, trying not to twitch the strings around me. You see, I’ve had this feeling that a wave is coming, somewhere beyond the horizon, that I can feel the vibrations of it before anyone else had noticed, as they drink coffee and wonder what time the sun will go down tomorrow. I need to retreat. To drop to my knees and slide out of the room, to a place where I can shut a door so I can open the one inside my head, the one that holds story and deadlines and deadlines for that story. Twitch, twitch. Slide away.

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The Three-minute Writing Challenge Will Return in June

Until then, I’ll leave you with a wonderful quote from Maggie Smith.

“Maybe you don’t know what kind of work you should be doing in the world. Maybe you think everyone else has it figured out. (They don’t.) Your work is being yourself, offering what you can to others. You’ve been doing it all along. Now do it with intention."

– Maggie Smith, Keep Moving

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If you’d like to read more from me, you can find my writing by picking up my novels, either from any decent bookshop or through your local library (never feel bad about this - I actually make more money from a library loan than a Kindle purchase). The Lonely Fajita (2021), The Sister Surprise (2022), or The Wedding Crasher (2023). My books have sold nearly 20,000 copies and I am so grateful that people like my dark lil’ sense of humour and fish-out-of-water heroines.

Reviews of my work:

'‘I relished this witty, tender story of loneliness, growth and friendship. Mann has a fabulous knack of finding the funny in life’s small detail’ - Pernille Hughes

‘Heartwarming, charming and witty’ - Sophie Cousens #1 bestselling author of This Time Next Year

‘The perfect blend of warm and witty you can't help but smile (and laugh) throughout’ - Helly Acton, author of The Shelf

‘Had me laughing all the way through, and I got weepy at the end’  - Sara Nisha Adams, author of The Reading List

‘I laughed the whole way through and cried at the end. The perfect smart, escapist read’  - Freya Sampson, author of The Last Chance Library

‘As comforting as putting on your cosiest sweater and fuzzy socks. I loved every moment of it’ - Jesse Sutanto, author of Dial A For Aunties

‘Yet another hilarious and touching book from Abigail Mann, with a cast of great and terrible characters and a setting full of Succession-esque glamour and drama’ - Lex Croucher, author of Gwen and Art are Not in Love

‘Abigail Mann is at her absolute best . . . she skillfully uses comedy alongside other more serious topics’ - Holly McCulloch, author of The Mix Up