Writing as a behaviour

A behaviour is something which we do when triggered by the brain and is the performance of an observable physical act. Writing is a behaviour, but one that is not always easy to perform. For those of us who write for work, there can be many barriers to writing.

A structured social writing retreat supports performance of the writing behaviour. It does this in many ways, and at Coastal Writing Retreats we have lots of tricks up our sleeves to help our writers to both perform, and learn about, their own writing behaviours.

We support writing by using a variety of what are called Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) as described by Susan Michie and colleagues at University College London in their Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). However, most of these are not new ideas. The social writing retreat format developed by Rowena Murray is already jam-packed with these BCTs.

Let’s start with the basics of what a writing retreat can help with. One of the factors which can affect the performance of a behaviour is something called Physical Opportunity in the BCW. This includes the time and space to perform a behaviour. At an out-of-office writing retreat, writers are provided with a physical space and protected time (although you protect it yourself by booking a space on a retreat!) for writing. You are fed and watered for the duration of the day, which means you are free to concentrate on your writing!

Our writing retreats combine the BCTs we’ve identified from Rowena Murray’s social writing retreat structure, and a sprinkling of some of our own ideas as behavioural science experts. We’re really excited to try these out with our participants to see if they help with their writing performance, both with us at the retreat and back at their own base.

Look out for more blogs from Coastal Writing retreats, where we will share what we find supporting writing as a behaviour. If you want to experience our behaviourally informed retreats, come and join us at one of our upcoming events.