Now, I wish there was more photographic evidence of my time away. It is a stunning little cottage by the sea—couldn’t get more photogenic. But, of course, the one thing I didn’t pack? My camera’s battery charger. Uh huh. So right after I took the photo above, my camera died.

On the last morning, I woke up to a clear grey ocean, clouds like castles in a white-blue sky. A sea lion swam past the shore on his way to find breakfast (or maybe on his way back from it). It would have been perfect to photograph everything. But that would have been easy. Not having visual evidence seems apt because the retreat was all about writing and being alone and being the only witness. That’s an amazing thing about telling stories. As a writer, I am the first witness. I pull the story out of myself and pass it on to others to witness in turn.

As soon as I got to the cottage that first day, I realised how appropriate it was to be writing by the sea. To be in front of it, staring across it whenever my eyes left the page. I’ve always marveled at how barren and unbreachable the ocean can feel when you ride on top of it on a ferry. In a strange way, it seems almost like a sort of desert, devoid of many of the signs of life we’re used to on land. But I marvel at the explosion of life under the surface, the possibilities we only glimpse from above. For me, it’s a fitting analogy to the potential for story in a writer—or, actually, in all of us. When I look at a blank page, as calm and daunting as the sea, I try to remind myself that things lie under the surface, that the story is living there. And I am the one who must dive in and find it.