Take nine strangers, with nothing in common but a love of words.

Drop them in a country house in the Boyne Valley.

Leave them there for a few days, surrounded by rolling pastures, with a soundtrack provided by a lawnmower, a whistling podcaster, some highly irritated cows, and infrequently-bleating sheep.

Cellphone coverage is spotty, the occasional single bar popping up and vanishing as though the house ghost has learned some new technological tricks.

Wi-fi is notionally available, but is as temperamental as the hot water heaters.

What happens next?

• A murder mystery?
• A psychological experiment on the effects of a surprise digital detox?
• A slow unraveling, as one by one the guests are driven demented by one another’s company, by the heat, the isolation, the rickety plumbing?

If you guessed none of the above, you’d be correct.

If you guessed “Magic!”, you’re either a pie-eyed optimist, or you’ve attended a Dark Angels course and have already earned your wings.

Every single person on our course was told about Dark Angels and encouraged to take a course by another writer.

In my case, the writer was my boss. She attended the foundation course in Massachusetts last year, and came back radiant. The experience had rekindled her joy in writing, and made her want to share that joy with all of us.

We listened, we tried some exercises ourselves, we googled Dark Angels, and mostly we basked in her happiness. Overjoyed that this writer we all admire so much was newly energized, more confident in her own voice, sure that she was on the right path.

She told me then that she’d like to send me on a Dark Angels course too. As kind and supportive as she is, in the corporate world “would like to” is often as far as these things go.

On a call one day, she sent me a link to the Dark Angels website, to a course that was coming up in Ireland. I clicked through but didn’t dare to hope.

A few short weeks later, she told me to “go ahead and book it”, and followed that with something you don’t often hear in the world of work:

“I want you to do this for you.”

As the start date came closer, I was excited and more than a little terrified.

We were asked to provide a short bio, for the tutors’ eyes only, and explain our reasons for wanting to attend the course. I decided to be honest: “I’m terrified of becoming a hack. Or of already being a hack. If I am one, would anyone tell me?”

I write for a living. That makes me a writer. But sometimes, that part of you that you recognize as “the writerly bit” can feel buried under deadlines, endless requests for words artfully arranged or otherwise, and people popping up at your desk looking for you to wave your magical word-wand and produce (instantly, if you please) the magical phrase that will put out a fire someone that isn’t you has started on Twitter.

You start to feel like a machine. With a handle people crank to get fresh words. There is so much writing that you can’t tell anymore whether it’s any good or not, and in your heart of hearts you’re afraid that you’re doing it wrong and any day now someone will notice and call you on it.

What if I went on this course and didn’t feel inspired?

What if I had to write something but couldn’t?

What if I let my boss down and wasted the company’s money?

What if I went on this course and discovered that I am not a writer?

Turns out that I was about to meet seven other people with the same set of worries.

And all of us were wrong.

Here’s where the alchemy comes in.

Six people meet at a coffee shop in Dublin Airport, wander to the coach park, and board a minibus.

A short while later, the bus bounces down the drive and over a cattle grid before stopping in front of a long, low building. There are cars there, and three more people waiting for us.

We’re welcomed, taken on a tour of the house, picking out bedrooms as we go. Then we all assemble for dinner.

Nine strangers.

Zero uncomfortable silences.

The magic has started.

After dinner, John and Mike bring us to another room, and the work begins.

We write about where we are, who we are, and learn how important it is to “Only connect.” We share our words. All of us nervous, all of us admiring everyone elses’ work.

No-one is unkind. No-one is grandstanding. It is a room entirely devoid of ego, all of us captivated by the individual imaginations at work in it.

Everyone is so talented, so good. Everyone has a voice and perspective that’s uniquely theirs. I sit and listen and know how lucky I am to be here.

Still too shy to socialize much, I take my notebook to my room and make a start on my homework.

The next morning is sunny in a way that’s rare in Ireland. We start work after breakfast, wander across the fields to lunch, and work outside in the afternoon.

Over the next two days, we get to know one another, we talk about life and work. We share our words. We huddle in a frantic googling clump when we need to research something. We gather at the fireplace before dinner, heads bent over notebooks or laptops. John Simmons smiles and tells us that “it’s like some weird sort of dentist’s waiting room”. We gasp and giggle and are struck dumb by one another’s brilliance.

We create fictional brands, we ventriloquize as celebrities,  we write the opening and closing parts of books we haven’t read or have forgotten we ever read, we create new myths, we get sunburned and commiserate about cold showers, we enjoy delicious meals and cozy conversations together. I grill Mike Gogan about teaching tone of voice in my surgery with him. Each of us panics about our personal writing assignment, and feels better knowing we’re not alone. We talk about how lucky we are. How talented everyone is. How every single person has written something that has blown everyone else away. And how they’ve each done it more than once.

The final evening, yesterday, was all too short.

We gathered in the orangery before dinner. Matthew, our podcasting angel, had brought mics and recording equipment. John gave a short introduction and then passed the mic around the circle as, one-by-one, we each read one of our major assignments aloud for the first time. Nine writers capturing their impressions of a moment in time from the previous day. Starting at dawn and ending in the middle of the night. Nine unique voices, captured in a single take.  There were goosebumps, and then there was prosecco (thank you, Mike!).

We had dinner together then, outside in the sun, then ambled inside again to read our main assignment, our personal pieces of writing. Somehow, over the course of the evening, the general nervousness around it had dissipated.

Somehow, every single writer managed to outdo themselves.

Those unique voices from two evenings before were stronger, fortified by all the work we’d done together, bolstered by the trust our small group had developed. Every single writer earned genuine, unanimous applause. I was so lucky to be in that room, and to listen to my fellow dark angels tell their stories. Lines from each of them still echo in my head.

We connected.

We earned our wings.

Now we can all fly.

Nine strangers, nine writers, nine Dark Angels.

Thank you John Simmons.

Thank you Mike Gogan.

Thank you Alix, Annette, Johanna, Karen, Matthew and Sabrina.

Thank you Lacy Rohre for gifting me this incredible experience.

And thank you Dark Angels for making it happen.

(tl;dr:  word worries dissipate/borne away on gentle wings/angels one and all)