Good Booch

The advert went along the lines of, 'Are you an aspiring author? Do you want to unlock that great novel trapped inside of you? Would you benefit from an Isolated, secluded environment, free from the world's distractions? Then come and join us at Harmony Writing Retreat!’ I decided to go for it even though the price of 2k for a day was a bit steep. I simply couldn't keep failing myself, and if anything, it would just be nice to be in a different environment for some time, to switch off from the world; we are all too saturated in connectedness, it can only be good.

"Welcome to Harmony Writing Retreat," said a warm and welcoming tone of a woman dressed in some sort of toga. I gave my name to the lady and signed some forms that I lazily, scan read. She beamed a smile at me until I felt awkward enough to look away, handed me a nicely, textured schedule that felt good on my fingertips, and I shuffled away in the direction she pointed.

Schedule

0900 - Welcome Lecture

0930- Booch break

1000 - Writing workshop

1200- lunch & Booch

1300- Writing workshop

1500 - [Optional] Writing in nature

1800 - End of day - [Optional] BOOCH and

banter

My first question on absorbing the information, and which I spoke out loud to myself, was," What the heck is booch?" The lady at the desk clearly overhearing my self-mutterings, answered me with an informative tone," It's a fizzy, fermented drink that is good for your gut health," I nodded and re-muttered, "Gut health? Huh," then carried on down the corridor, which led me to a bright , fully-windowed room that generously displayed the verdancy of the forest from all angles. You could be convinced that you were in a zoo enclosure or on the bridge of large ship overlooking the vast sea of nature. I surveyed the room avoiding eye-contact with everybody, and saw people buzzing with social energy.; the energy of new connections and potential friends with every hello or instance of eye--contact. Not me, I’m a social cockroach that wondered how they all make it look so easy.

Everyone there smiled at me with warmth and the cynical part of my brain questioned people who smiled so freely and effortlessly. They say it takes less muscles to smile than frown, but it also takes less muscles to just rest your face. Christ , I'm a cynical S.O.B. Not really knowing what do with myself, I strolled over to the desk signed, 'Time to Disconnect,' which sort of could be interpreted as unplugging me from the matrix but alas, this is where they took away all of my technological belongings (reconnecting me with reality), that I so obsessively cradled day in day out. Devices of distraction. Phones of procrastination. These little bricks of compact tech marvels were the main reason I've been telling myself that I was never going to be a writer; I was hooked on them. They are opiates for my eyes, great absorbers of my time, and my attention span - distorting my existence somehow, whilst also hyper-defining who I was, by reducing my personality to an algorithm. What does your algorithm say about you? Too much and not enough.

I dropped my phone, smartwatch, and my kindle into a box which was sealed and secured away in some ye' olde looking safe, like the ones you see in the wild west movies, and then another smiling lady diligently and digitally scanned me up and down with a security wand to check if I was armed? No. To check if I was in fact smuggling electronics. As if I had sought the lengths of storing something inside me, like a junky turning up to rehab with one last score. It was ludicrous that I'd conceal a phone in my body like some cheap cyberpunk, to simply get my social media fix. Wasn’t it? OK, well maybe I thought about it, but I'm here to get serious. This moment is my pivot, where I change course and achieve something for once in my life. It's time to shut people up; every person in my life asks about my novel progress - often with a peppering of satisfaction. The more they asked, the more I got irritated, and the more I become entrenched in my inability to do anything, turning me and my life into some immovable rock, waiting to be eroded into dust.

Now stripped of my electronics, I had to learn how to be human again. I've never been good at mingling, so I play the whole silent, introspective, deep-thinker , author vibe. I looked around at people trying to see another loner, but everyone was taken and animated in conversation. Christ, i have to look at people now my phone is gone. Where did I look before i had a phone? Feeling incredibly uncomfortable having to look at members of my own species, I decided to look at out of the windows to admire the sea of green, hoping the tranquillity would eat me up until some communal activity started.

0900 - Welcome Lecture

The introductory speech was given by some goddess of a mid-fifties woman, who beamed at us in an unrelenting way. She was sort of like those new LED headlights , blinding, but you wanted to keep seeing the road ahead, so you looked anyway, not matter what your retinas thought. She (Katherine) had self-published 20 novels, likes cats, and has a particular interest in making ground-breaking, vegan recipes with tofu - some of which would be on offer during our kombucha and organic nut selection break. The general gist of her enthusiastic speech was that if we followed some of her steps, we could be successful like her. She (her program) was the key to unlocking all of that imprisoned potential within us (me), and with the right habitual recalibration, attitudinal shift, and MOST importantly - less distractions - we could achieve our dreams of selling stories for money. We'd finally get acknowledged by all the doubters in our lives, and could proudly tell everyone (including my dating profile), that we are published authors. Claps pattered to conclude it all and as chairs shuffled on the hard, wooden floors and people dispersed, Katherine shouted out in a mildy, panicky tone, "Does anyone have nut allergies?" Silence. Everyone lives today.

0930 - Nuts and Booch Break

Communal eating and conversation was one of my biggest fears in life because I only liked to do one or the other, not both at the same time. It always bothered me that we were told to not talk whilst eating - yet restaurants seemed to facilitate this and create a contradiction of social norms - I'm overthinking again. Whilst I avoided the breaking of new culinary boundaries in tofu, I crunched the reliable taste of nuts and felt my stomach get gassy from the sips of "booch' as they were all calling it. I eyed the schedule to avoid eye-contact with people and internally pleaded that Katherine, who was walking around and greeting people, would miss me out. She must have sensed my awkwardness or noticed my 'chi' was off, because she floated straight by me as if she subconsciously knew I'd drain her vibe. Attempting to make some sort of effort, I shuffled around the maze of bodies, looked at people who noticed my 'off' presence, and proclaimed, "good booch," smiled awkwardly and sought a quiet corner to cower away from my social embarrassment. Whilst staring out of the windows for the second time today, the confident voice of Katherine broke my social coma, “Attention my lovely little PAs (Potential Authors), please gather, please gather." she instructed. We swooped around Katherine in a circle, like seagulls ready to communally feast and fight over what morsels of wisdom she'd scatter our way.

She drank us all in for a minute or so, as if absorbing our hope and dreams, then told us to close our eyes and shout out our fears about writing. Before we did this, some barefoot dude appeared out of nowhere with a Goki drum, settled himself on the hardwood floors, and began rhythmically beating it. The first desperate bleat of, "Rejection" came out, followed by a deflated contribution of, “Feeling unsuccessful," then a feminine tone, which called out, "Denial." The drumbeats got harder and louder now as if it was trying to pulverise the words in the air, then someone right near my ear shouted out, "Doom scrolling my time away," which elicited a collective hum of agreement and head nods. The drum beat now seemed all consuming and my body enlivened to its rhythm, and I felt it reverberating within me -Boom, boom, boom. Feeling emboldened by the drums and a sense of collective bonding with my peers in their writing struggle, I confidently yelled out, “A crippling sense of worthlessness from the overbearing pressure of incompletion,” my voice trailing off as if my despair and confidence depleted out of me, like a flat tyre hissing out its air.

Of course, the drum stopped and everyone eyed me up in a concerned sort of silence - looks of 'too far' and , 'are you ok, hun?.' Silence that I was generally used to. I was never a crowd pleaser. Katherine looked at me for the first time today, biblically spilt the crowd with a raise of her hands, creating a channel of bodies, then paced determinedly towards me with her hand raised, and then pressed it firmly onto my passive face. It was sort of like being branded with the white mark of Saruman, but instead, the balmy palm of Katherine. Warm, moist. She proclaimed to the gathered, "His despair is healed," then headed back to her bamboo mat stage to carry on her performance with her affectionate smile. The others following her cue smiled too - her puppets - and the drum erupted once again, with vigorous pounds from barefoot. What happened next was very, 'tell me you're in a cult without telling me you're in a cult.' Katherine being the accomplished wordsmith she is, turned these negative phrases around and back on us, converting them into positive mantras. She yelled out "We won't be rejected," and ushered us to repeat. We repeated. Then she hailed, "We are successful,” we repeated, and so on until they got to mine, which I couldn't help but notice, got skipped over. I figured she didn't have the cognitive capacity to remix it into something positive - too many syllables or something. Anyway, she began to wave her arms in the air and bounced from foot to foot in the rhythm of the drum beats - some people mimicked this - then we all found ourselves doing it through mere peer pressure. The crowd of us, like some moronic mob, collectively chanted and moved as one; bound by our communal struggles, sense of authorial failure, and internal despair. Unfortunately, the exertions did force gas of booch within us, to erupt from time to time - though the drums covered up most of the more audible and extreme gaseous expulsions. By the end of it, we were all huffing and puffing from the vocal and physical exertions of our communal act, and smiling like some great weight was lifted. I have to admit, I felt good. Katherine really nailed this one.

1000 - Writing Workshop 1

The first session was (how do I even describe this?), essentially Katherine dancing in the centre of us all on some bamboo mat that was circled by the tables , sort of like a UN convention or something. Katherine explained that we were all likely talented PAs (potential authors), but she has something we don't, and the only way to get 'what she had' was for her to transfer it through a dance. Yes a dance. Her angelic, rhythmic movements (her words) would transfer her author energy into us, as we wrote. OK. I did once try writing a short story on my phone , in a strip club but it didn't quite work out. I guess the hard-working ladies whom I have complete respect for as people, didn't have Katherine's authorial chi or whatever. So off she went with her rhythmic limb show, and off we went to writing with the supplied organic, pesticide-free paper, and zero-waste writing implements. If I had to be honest, I don't think the energy transferred successfully , but I did get a lot written down (maybe that was her?), despite the huffs and puffs of exertion disturbing my 'chi'. If anything, we were all impressed that she went non-stop for 2 hrs.

1200 - Lunch and Booch

I was doing my usual thing of pretending that the eyes of others weren't oppressing upon me while I existed, and tried to concentrate on chowing down this butter bean, beetroot, and tofu creation that everyone else seemed to audibly compliment to nearby Katherine. I focused on my mastication, and sipped my booch in reasonable peace, until some male voice, the only other male here (probably wants to bond), filled my ears with an introductory, "Hi, I'm Andrew, I like Sci-fi, fantasy, and alternative fiction, who are you?" The guy looked at me pretty keenly for a response, with the social energy of a cocker spaniel, which drained me instantly. I sluggishly told him my name and focused on saying the minimal to suggest interest, but not enough to get absorbed into each other's minds. Why am I like this? Why can’t I bond with others? He talked a lot about his novel idea which was spacey, erotic fantasy, and posed a question that I'm likely going to think about until my unsatisfying demise, "Why don't we have any alien-based erotica? Aliens Vs Predator," he giggled, "How about aliens seduces predators?" He added. Andrew seemed to believe there was a market for it. Follow your dreams, Andrew, follow your dreams.

1300 - Writing Workshop 2

After getting some flow in the morning session, I was eager to jump right back into another workshop. The break away from my habitual, unproductive routines, was good, and I was writing more than ever. I just hope that Katherine tired herself out enough, so that I didn't have to hear her pant like a dog again. I have to admit, when the advert said 'alternative approaches,' I sort of expected a Miss Trunchbull experience or someone to Taser me every time they saw me distracted from my writing. At least some sort of negative reinforcement to break me out of my bad habits. But alas, I appear to have flourished in a lighter, hippy, nature vibe. This session was held in the same room as before, though this time the tables and chairs were well-spaced out and the windows were opened, allowing the fresh breeze to soothe us somewhat. Surrounding each writing space was an insane amount of peppermint plants, which we were encouraged to bathe our faces in, graze on like cattle, or rub on our bodies to help us absorb it's productive and feel good properties. Katherine explained that peppermint is a natural attention-grabber and it elicits activity in our brain 'writing chi,' which makes us ultra-productive. As soon as we felt our attention drifting, we simply had to reinvigorate ourselves with the peppermint at our disposal. I took some light sniffs and got to writing. Others took it a little further - as if it was intended to be some erotic mingling between plant and human. A few people began to itch from it, in fact, everyone who caressed it upon their skin, appeared to now be red and severely itching from their intimate acquainting with the plant. I observed the worry in Katherine who was now escorting the beetroot, red people out of the room to soothe with creams. Before she left, she declared that, "nature rejects some impure people," and advised the rest of us to adopt a sniff only relationship with the plant, henceforth. I charged on with my writing, giggling to myself from time to time - fully embracing the schadenfreude, and inhaling the chi properties of peppermint to boost me along.

1800 - Booch and Bants

Out came the drumming, a little calmer now, to serenade us for the final gathering. My overwhelmed self , decided to avoid the social on-slaught, and instead of subjecting myself to socially awkward attempts at conversation (good booch was all I had), I decided to head straight to the reception without waving to any of the people gathered. I took one last look at them all to store it in my memory, to reflect upon later, and noticed that people with thick slabs of cream on them were laughing with Katherine, and likely easing her fears of legal action. Katherine was placing her all-powerful hand of healing on people's faces again as if she was Katherine the Enchantress, and people seemed to eat it up. What a crowd. I turned away and walked to reception , where they handed back my tech to me (reconnected), and handed me a goody bag of Katherine's signed merch; a cup with her face on (perfect), a silken tofu cookie recipe (no thanks), a signed copy of her recent self-published novel "The Chi Novelist," (hmm), a bunch of postcards with self-affirmations on them, a bouquet of peppermint leaves to sniff at home, and a 10% off coupon for a 12 pack of boocha. You know, I can see myself being a boochy guy.

All in all, that was pretty good. I left there with my four chapters of my novel, I have a rejuvenated hope in myself, and now all I'm thinking about is aliens seducing predators. Andrew, I think you're onto something there.

The End