For years I’ve heard about people going
away on a writer’s retreat. Usually a large house or collection of picturesque
cabins in some rural idyll, where you could go to be alone with your muse
during the day, and gather in the evening for literary discussion over the
dinner table and a few bottles of decent claret.
Or something like that.
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| The Villa Diodati, near Geneva, where Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin met during the summer of 1816 and produced works such as Frankenstein |
Truth is if I ever had to write about a
writer’s retreat, I’d have to make it up. I’ve never actually been on one.
Perhaps it’s because I come from a
journalistic background, where I didn’t so much have a muse as a tight deadline
and an editor with a big stick.
(Usually with nails in it.)
Back when I still had a day-job, I’d write fiction
anytime, anywhere. In the car on the way to photoshoots, in hotels and waiting
rooms. Entire chapters were written on flights. The idea of needing to go
somewhere, well, special in order to
put words on the page seemed wholly unnecessary.
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| writing on the move |
But the past couple of years have been
tough and filled with distractions. For the last month or so I’ve had my head
stuffed with the complexities of house renovation. My To Do list seems to get constantly
longer rather than shorter. I was trying
to do everything at once and it felt like I was failing on all fronts.
A kick-start was called for. Time away from
the construction work. Time to allow the cracked ribs to knit back together
without over-stretching them again. And time to get my head back into writing
the new Charlie Fox book. I have, after all, already got a decent chunk of it
written. What I needed was to get back into that mindset, that zone, to breathe
the arid air of the Middle East, to smell the burnt powder of a firefight, to feel
the totally alive buzz of living through Charlie’s eyes in that electrifying
sliver between the ‘what if’ and the ‘when’.
A stint of cat/dog/house-sitting was just
what I needed.
And so I find myself in the wilds of
Derbyshire, in a beautiful house with two magnificent cats and a shaggy dog
with one of the loveliest temperaments (unless you happen to be a cat … or a
sheep) I’ve had the pleasure to encounter.
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| one of the softest dogs you'll ever find ... unless you are a cat |
It’s taken me a couple of days to settle
in, to find my own routine in among the three walks a day the dog requires, and
the attention at least one of the cats demands.
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| fabulous sunset over the Derbyshire countryside |
It also took me a little while to get out of the DIY mindset. OK, so almost
the first thing I did, on autopilot, was go round and tighten up all the loose
handles on the kitchen cupboards. But apart from that there is nothing to be
done. And my own house cannot be worked upon from a distance.
There is nothing for me to do now except
enjoy the stunning views, walk, sleep, eat, heal, and write.
So, I’ve been re-reading the book so far,
making odd little changes. A word here, a sentence there. Gain a comma, lose a
full stop. It’s all preparing me for the next blank page, when I will have to
launch into clear air and see where the story takes me.
And I have to admit that already Charlie is
beginning to talk to me again inside my head. She’s nudging me to Get On With
It. And she’s carrying a big stick.
With nails in it.
So, what do you think about writers’
retreats? Have you ever been on one, or seriously considered it? Do you think you’d
benefit, or do you prefer to be somewhere familiar with your own stuff around
you? And if you’ve never written, do you think you might take to it, in that
kind of atmosphere?
This week’s Word of the Week is magistricide,
meaning the killing of a teacher or master, from the Latin magister, meaning a master, chief, superior, or teacher, from magis, meaning more or great.
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