relax and write

RETREAT REPLETE!

/ Edwina Shaw / 1 Comment
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Me, Lalita and the lovely Bianca!

Just back from the latest wonderful Relax and Write Retreat at Burleigh Heads with a fabulous group of women, from first time explorers trying out their writing legs to experienced authors with published books under their belts.

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As always, I was inspired by how quickly new friendships formed and how everyone worked together to help each other with their projects.

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Maria, Kathy and Jude – triple retreaters!

The weekend was action packed with workshops, feedback sessions, yoga and dance.

This time though retreaters had a whole lot more free time to explore the beautiful beaches and rainforest surroundings. I even managed to sneak in a swim myself. YAY! The water was warm even very early in the morning. And so clean. Ah.

I loved having dance instructor extraordinaire, Lalita Lakshmi, from Spiced Tingle Dance along to lead us through some really fun dance sessions. Thank you Lalita. Yoga to calm us down and stretch out, and dancing to rev us back up again. With blissful body-work treatments from Monique DeGoey from  Reconnect Holistic Body Work leaving people floating. Thank you Monique.

This retreat, workshops were focused on structuring for success and publishing pathways for those with major projects underway. It also included individual feedback sessions which I really loved. It was fascinating to learn more about the stories I’d been privileged to read and edit, and discover the inspiration and hard work behind them.

I enjoyed giving feedback on a wide range of projects from heart-wrenching memoirs, to thrillers, to sci-fi, to YA mermaids. I loved reading and discussing them with their authors and hopefully I was able to provide some useful ideas to help the projects shine and move towards publication.

Thank you to the magnificent Maria Parenti-Baldey (a triple retreater – I had 3 triple retreaters along this time) who filmed my gentle guided mediation to boost confidence and creativity which is now up on YouTube. Use it whenever your critical voice is getting too loud, you’re feeling blocked, or even if you’re nervous going somewhere you’ve never been before. Please do feel free to share it around.

The retreats always seem to come to an end too quickly – and this time it really did! We ran out of time to do our customary collages – so I hope all my new mermaids are having fun getting stuck into it at home. Here’s what Kim came up with.

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Kim’s collage

Thank you so much to the lovely folk at CYC Burleigh especially our handsome host Joel who spoilt us rotten with hot chocolates and real coffee. Think he just scored himself a whole new set of aunties.

Every time I come home after camp I’ve made a whole lot of fabulous new friends who share my love of writing. A wonderful tribe of women writers.

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UPCOMING RETREATS

I’ve got three retreats planned for next year.

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  1. Relax and Write in the Mountains – March 27- 29 2020 at Camp Koojarewon among the trees in Highfields, just north of Toowoomba.

This retreat is best for writers of memoir and/or those who are new to writing. Workshops include lots of writing prompts and exercises, including the basics of how to build a story step by step, plus some general writing tips. HURRY! Places for this one are already filling fast as several retreaters from Burleigh have already got their hands up.

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  1. Relax and Write in Paradise – June 19-21 2020 at Amaroo Resort on beautiful Magnetic Island.

Escape the winter blues and really spoil yourself with this retreat for more experienced writers- though beginners are welcome too. Workshops focus on character and plot development, with lots of writing exercises. I especially welcome writers from the region. Because the rest of us have to travel so far, I highly recommend bring a friend or two and staying on at Amaroo (they offer bargain rates for retreaters) or in a holiday rental for another week to work on your writing projects. I just love Magnetic Island. It’s magical.

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  1. Relax and Write NANOWRIMO – dates and venue yet to be finalised. NOVEMBER 2020.

This camp is best for more experienced writers with a first draft of a full-length project either completed or underway. Individual feedback sessions are available and workshops are heavily craft focused, theory based and practical exploring publishing options.

You can book into any of the retreats for 2020 right now by dropping me a line and paying the $200 deposit. Please specify which retreat you’re interested in. Participant numbers are strictly limited to 15 so I can give everyone the attention they deserve.

Contact me with your retreat preference and I’ll send you my details to pay by direct deposit – preferred.

Or PAY YOUR DEPOSIT HERE and email me with your retreat preference.

Come along and join our group of happy campers! Treat yourself to a 2020 retreat this Christmas. Better yet – get someone else to give you a wonderful present you’ll really enjoy.

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Put yourself in this picture.

 

Please do get in touch if you’re struggling financially and we’ll work something out so you can come too. Helena and I first started these retreats because we couldn’t afford to go to any of the fancy ones we saw advertised, so the accommodation isn’t posh, but the workshops and people are first class! (We like to think so anyway)

A big thank you to all my lovely mermaids, wood nymphs and happy campers for making these retreats a true joy to facilitate.

Lots of love

Edwina xxx

YOGA AND WRITING -THE PERFECT PARTNERS

/ Edwina Shaw / 4 Comments

 writing ganesh

WHY YOGA AND WRITING TOGETHER?

People often ask why I combine yoga and writing at my retreats.

Yoga and writing are my twin passions. Making me choose between them is akin to forcing a mother to choose between her children –Sophie’s Choice style. Both yoga and writing are part of my daily life and have been for a very long time. Together they have helped me to heal my past and continue to keep me joyfully sane. They also make my writing richer and deeper.

From early childhood I’ve loved writing stories and I’ve been keeping a journal since my teens. Like most people though, I had that innate creativity squashed out of me by formal schooling. But I kept writing my diaries even if, during my most alcohol and drug addicted days, it was simply a way to remember what I’d done the day before.

Yoga came into my life in my early twenties. While I was travelling in Cambodia, a friend gave me a sheet of paper with the Ashtanga Yoga Primary series printed on it and every morning taught a few of us the sequence. That’s now over 25 years ago and I still get up and do my practice almost every single day. Having taught yoga for many years, I know how difficult it is to get students to commit to a daily practice, so I can only thank my addictive personality for keeping me on the mat. Addiction tamed is discipline 🙂 Don’t worry the yoga we do on retreat is much gentler!

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The motto of Ashtanga yoga is “Do your practice and all is coming” and I know now that this works for writing and other creative arts as well. Do your practice, do it regularly, keep focused, and all indeed will come, even if goals such as publication often take longer than we would like. The discipline of a daily yoga practice helped me to develop the discipline of a daily writing practice. Regular practice is how things happen. As one of my other favourite quotes says, “Persistence is the key!”

TOGETHER YOGA AND WRITING HAVE MANY BENEFITS.

On the practical side – writing is a sedentary profession and being stuck in front of a screen for hours is not the best for our health. Combining your daily writing practice with daily exercise is essential for maintaining your vitality. You can only function at a high level intellectually and imaginatively if you’re in good health. Yoga stretches out spines that have been hunched over keyboards, straightens necks that have been craning forward looking at screens, and gets hearts that have been lulled into sloth sitting for too long, pumping freely again.

 

Best of all, yoga helps shift emotions that have been stuck in your body. The postures have been designed to cleanse the body, not just of tension, but of deeper traumas held in our cells. Yoga brings to the surface bottled up feelings and life stories, which you can then release through writing. Not only that, by getting in touch with your bodily sensations through yoga, you’re better able to evoke emotion by expressing the visceral sensations associated with those emotions when you write.

WRITING IS A MEDITATIVE PRACTICE

Writing on a regular basis is a meditative practice, especially when you write stories from your life. Most of us have stories from our pasts that replay over and over again in our minds. Getting them onto the page and creating stories, something beautiful from the pain, frees them from our minds and makes room for new thoughts and new ways of being. Yoga brings the stories to the light, writing them down gets them out of your head and onto the page so you don’t have to keep reliving/retelling/rethinking those same old patterns. Together yoga and writing are the perfect tools for helping you heal your life and create something worthwhile in the process.

All creative arts help us to express the great mystery of human experience. For me the easiest way is with words, for others its drawing or dance or sculpture. Whichever artform you prefer is the place to start.

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And of course, it’s not all just about healing our pasts, it’s about embracing the present as well. Yoga teaches us to live fully in the moment, to breathe deeply and relish each breath, to flow with life. When we’re fully immersed in writing a story or a poem or a screenplay we have moments where we are totally apart from ourselves, at one with the flow of our stories, the flow of creativity. Time doesn’t exist, thought doesn’t exist, we don’t exist – only the story.

That for me is pure joy.

So that’s why I combine yoga and writing on my retreats. Because the very best stories come from our hearts and that universal flow of creation we all share. The best way I know to tap into that flow is through yoga.

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Come along to a retreat and try the combination for yourself. See what stories your body is longing to tell. Rewrite your past and write yourself a bright and sparkling future.

How do you tap into that flow? Do you have any rituals that get you writing? I’d love to hear what works for you.

Lots of love
Edwina xx

YAHOO! YIPPEE! RELAX AND WRITE 3!

/ Edwina Shaw / 1 Comment

mermaids swimming

This Spring, forget the housework – SPRING CLEAN YOURSELF!!

Come and join our merry band of mermaids and scribes at the next Relax and Write Retreat from Friday 31st August until Monday 3rd September 2018 at beautiful Camp Koinonia by the sea at Evans Head Northern NSW.

Bookings are now open for Relax and Write 3 with early bird prices in effect until the 31st July. Places are filling fast so make sure you put your hand up soon by contacting Helena at helenapastor2@gmail.com for more info and a booking form.

The program includes a fun mix of yoga in the mornings,

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and informative and inspiring creative writing workshops throughout the day.

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With lots of time for relaxing, swimming, walking, meditating, chatting and little lie downs 🙂

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PROGRAM FOR RELAX AND WRITE 3

FRIDAY
Arrival from 2 p.m. Check-in
5:30 p.m. Welcome, drinks and nibbles, intro
6:30 p.m. Deep relaxation and introductory
writing exercises
7:30 p.m. Dinner

SATURDAY
7:30 – 9 am Gentle morning yoga and breathing
exercises with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30 p.m. Writing Your Way into a Story – Helena
FREE TIME FOR LUNCH AND
BEACH ACTIVITIES
3:30 – 5:30 p.m. Using yoga and drama techniques for
developing your characters – Edwina
7pm Dinner
OPEN MIC NIGHT If you’re up to it, please bring
along a song or other musical item,
a poem, a short performance piece
or whatever else you would like to share…

SUNDAY
7:30 – 9 am Yoga with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30p.m. Structuring for Suspense – Edwina
EXCURSION TO CHINAMANS
BEACH FOR PICNIC LUNCH AND
FREEWRITING
4pm – 6 pm Writing Dialogue – Helena
7pm Dinner

MONDAY
7:30 – 9 am Yoga with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30 p.m. Pitching your work – from bios to synopses
to grant applications – E and H
Feedback and farewells.

COST

We’ve done our best to keep prices for the retreat reasonable – we know women often don’t have much cash to spend on themselves. We also know they really need some time out to nurture themselves and their writing.

$470 for single room in ensuite cabin
$430 for twin share in ensuite cabin

EARLY BIRD $440/$400 if booked and deposit of $150 received before 31st July 2018

The cost includes:
• 3 x yoga sessions
• 6 x writing workshops.
• 3 x nights accommodation
• 3 x healthy vegetarian dinners

If you have any ideas for workshops you ‘d like to see included, please let us know.

For more information and to book please contact Helena

We’d love to have you come along and join the fun. We always have a wonderful time 🙂

Helena and Edwina photo

Helena and Edwina

ANNOUNCING RELAX AND WRITE MARCH 2018!!

/ Edwina Shaw / Leave a comment

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YAY! Dates are now set for the next Relax and Write Retreat!

Friday March 16 – Monday 19th 2018

Feeling like you deserve a special treat?

This retreat may be just the ticket.

Three nights away in a beautiful beachside location with like-minded women, relaxing with gentle yoga and inspiring your inner writer with fun writing workshops.

It will still be lovely and warm in March so bring your swimmers and sunblock. We’ll be staying at the beautifully basic Camp Koinonia in Evans Head, Northern NSW
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So, whether you’re a writer in need of relaxation and a good stretch, or a yoga practitioner yearning to write, this is the retreat for you.

For more information and to book please contact Helena:
helenapastor2@gmail.com or
phone 0447 334 665 for further info.

Here’s what participants from the 2017 retreat had to say…

“Edwina and Helena have an easy style of putting people at ease and making each individual feel welcome and they were flexible in altering the program to meet the needs of the participants.”

“It was a great break away, affordable and I left feeling refreshed and with a significant amount of writing done.”

“I came away with a lot of information about entering into the field of professional writing as well as a wealth of ideas and starting points for fiction and memoir writing.”

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Also announcing our MORE DASH THAN CASH positions. Would you love to do a retreat like this but don’t have the available funds right now? We know what that’s like (and we need some helpers!) so we’ve created a couple of sponsored positions.

Apply for one of our supported spots where for a few hours assistance with kitchen and other duties you can join us at a greatly reduced cost 🙂

Helena and Edwina Relax and write 2017

So, come along and join our merry band of scribes and mermaids. Relax, write and enjoy yourself in a beautiful coastal setting with experienced workshop facilitators and published authors Helena Pastor and Edwina Shaw – see their bios HERE.

Unwind with yoga and free your creative voice with lots of fun writing activities and workshops. All only a minute’s walk from a glorious beach surrounded by national park where you can swim, walk, laze in the sun or meditate to your heart’s content.

Pick up from Coolangatta or Ballina airports is available if you’re coming from afar.

PROGRAM

Friday
2 pm onwards – checking in
5:30 – meet and greet, drinks and nibbles
6:30 – Deep relaxation and introductory writing exercises
7:30 – Dinner

Saturday
7:30 – 9 am – Gentle morning yoga and breathing exercises with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30 – Writing Your Way into a Story – Helena
FREE TIME FOR LUNCH AND BEACH ACTIVITIES
3:30 – 5:30 – Using yoga and drama techniques for developing your characters – Edwina
7pm – dinner
Open Mic Night. If you would like to, please bring along a song or other musical item, a poem, a short performance piece or whatever else you would like to share 

Sunday
7:30 – 9 am – Yoga with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30 – Structuring for Suspense – Edwina
Excursion to Chinaman’s Beach for picnic lunch and freewriting
4pm – 6 pm – Writing Dialogue – Helena
7 pm – dinner

Monday
7:30 – 9 am – Yoga with Edwina
10:30 – 12:30 – Pitching your work – from bios to synopses to grant applications – E and H
Feedback and farewells.

For more information and to book please contact Helena:
helenapastor2@gmail.com or
phone 0447 334 665 for further info.

Come along and join the fun. We’d love to have you with us.

Get in fast. Places are strictly limited to no more than 15.

Mermaids and Scribes

/ Edwina Shaw / 1 Comment

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It’s only a week since the first ever Relax and Write Retreat finished up in a flurry of collage and fortune telling and one last swim (it was cold!).

Helena and I couldn’t have been happier with how it all went. We feel super lucky that we had a such an incredible, talented, warm and lovely group of women there with us, willing to be our retreat guinea pigs. And we are thrilled that they all had such a wonderful time and came away feeling nurtured and inspired, ready to  forge ahead with their writing.

Our retreaters had a wide range of writing experience – from complete newbies to Sue who had three completed manuscripts under her belt and a number of development awards to boot. The same with yoga – three yoga teachers and some complete beginners. Luckily Helena and I both have experience with students with a variety of needs so we embraced the differences and everyone benefitted from each other’s experiences as well as our input.

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We learnt a few things ourselves – heaps actually! Mainly that we wildly over-catered. You don’t need to cook three whole bags of pasta for 12 women! Johnny provided us with excellent meals and we even had a few massages.

What was most important was the women themselves who all leapt in with both feet and gave everything a go. We felt like an awesome unstoppable team – all 12 of us.

We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone at our next retreat in March 2018, and meeting the new women who come to join our happy band of mermaids and scribes.

Nina Woodrow, one of our talented participants wrote this beautiful poem about the retreat.

the mermaids
thought that they were teachers and bikers and writers
and mothers
and comics and social workers
generally over competent humans
and of course they were all these things too
but really they were mermaids
and you could tell
by the way they started to glisten
when they got close to the sea
by the way they shed their sensible shoes
and by the way their hair lifted at the roots
and communed wilfully with the sea breezes
but most of all you could tell
by the way they collectively knew
straight away
without anything being said
that different rules applied at mermaid base camp
how time for instance
could suddenly collapse in on itself
crumble like a sand dune at high tide and that long forgotten
drowned troubles and truths
sunken sorrows
could be exposed this way
so the mermaids formed a chain
they made a silent pact
they weaved their arms around each other’s waists
and dived in

By Nina WOODROW

Thanks so much to all our retreaters for making our inaugural retreat such a success!

with lots of love, Edwina and Helena xx

Helena and Edwina Relax and write 2017