I’m currently organising my October residency in Ireland – which prompts me to reblog this piece I wrote on the same a couple of years ago. Apologies in advance if any links are now defunct – but do let me know.
When people say that they’re jacking in the day job to write that book, in the same breath they usually tell you where this project is taking place. “I’m going to move to Paris/rent a shack in the woods/go to a monastery/live by the sea” they say, as if the locale will lend more credibility to their project.
It doesn’t. You can spend a year on a prestigious writers’ colony and come up with a heap of unpublishable, self-indulgent nonsense. Whereas, an amazing novel can be written in a council flat full of screaming kids, between the hours of 6-7pm every day – the important factor being “every day”.
Still, time and seclusion in an attractive environment do nurture creativity and attending a writers’ residency or retreat is not a bad idea – so long as you don’t think that the mere fact of being there is going to produce…
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May 29th, 2013 at 15:38
WONDERFUL 🙂
xx
May 30th, 2013 at 11:13
Oh, so pretty. Nothing better than a smooth-as-glass lake on a cloudy day.