I just “returned” from a five day writing retreat. It was great. The house where I stayed was amazing, tucked in a wooded neighborhood surrounded by farm fields.

It was quiet…most daylight hours. Easy to get to. The fridge was stocked. And I had full range of the house, many rooms in which to write: an office with a view of the woods, a bedroom facing east, a bedroom facing west. A coffee table in the middle of the living room. In fact, last week, for late March, turned out to be unexpectedly cold, so I followed the sun across the floor most days, taking my printed manuscript pages and computer from room to room.

There were no other writers in residence.

Each day of writing wrapped up around 5 p.m. with a brisk walk around the pond, which was visible from the west windows.

There were some requirements.

I had to drive to pick up a four year old child from school every day. And take him to play dates, feed him dinner, entertain him, and put him to bed.

Cooking was my responsibility. Not only for myself but for everyone else living in the house. I said no other writers were there. That doesn’t include the resident law professor and the four year old I mentioned.

The stocked fridge? That was me stocking it.

Several loads of laundry went through during the week, care of me, and we hosted house guests Thursday night – my friend and his son, in for a college visit to the local university. Every writing retreat needs a fancy dinner Thursday night, right?

Last week, I transformed my own home into a writing residency. I took a week of vacation from my job. I filled my little table-top, pebble-filled fountain with water and turned it on every afternoon to enjoy the bubbling sound. I reframed my usual views out my office and kitchen windows and asked myself: would I spend a week here, writing?

Your DIY writing retreat doesn’t have to be fancy. Or long, really. What you’ll need:

• Time: A few days of vacation, or even one day, or one afternoon can make a difference
• Focus: This can be even harder than time to procure. It helped me to think: how hard do I work for my day job? My novel deserves that kind of attention this week.
• A schedule: The fun part! Every day started with a timeline of novel writing sessions, a daily run, meals and reading breaks.
• A trick…to make your house feel different. For me, it was the pebble fountain, which I rarely turn on. The cheerful bubbling sound changed the space for my afternoon reading. I also looked out the windows a lot and thought, “would I go on a writing retreat here? Well, here I am.”

My retreat shifted my intellectual and creative center of gravity from being spread over many things during the course of each day to focus on one task: revising my novel. It was like having one heavy object in my net instead of several small ones.

I focused on two chapters. They grew in depth and set a course toward the end of the novel, which I’ve needed. I also hoped to outline the rest of the book in detail, but didn’t quite get there. That’s this week’s task back in my regular one-hour block.

I also read a little, limping through one George Saunders story and closing out some online articles that have been up for months. But my main focus and time-consumer was writing.

My return to regular life was more gentle than I anticipated. There wasn’t a long drive. I didn’t have to clean – at least not any more than usual.

My novelist friend Julia went on a residency – a real one, where she drove to a place not her house – the week before and passed the baton to me. We had our usual Wednesday afternoon call both during her retreat and mine – an anchoring event for both of us. She’s found a place to go to write, not far from her house but not in her house. I’ve found that I can retreat inside my own house.

Plus I got to pick up a delightful four year old boy from school every day and spend the evening with him. After this week, I recommend that writers’ residencies offer Pixar movies.