Write On!

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
~ Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Over the next four days I’ll be on retreat. Not one I’m running, but one I’m attending. Hopefully I’ll have some phone reception while I’m there, so that I can sneak out a post or two for you!

For the past several years I’ve belonged to a small band of writers – a support crew of writing ‘sisters’ – and this coming long weekend we have hired a house in the countryside so that we can all sit in various corners hammering out vast quantities of wordage. Just for this weekend we have left our day jobs behind, our partners, our families, our worldly responsibilities. All that will matter is our writerly selves, our current writing projects, and words on the page. As the words pile up we’ll share a meal, drink tea and discuss life, writing and everything in between.

I was too ill to attend our last retreat, so I’m super excited to be able to get to this one, and I’ve made a deal with my doctor to delay my Drug Number Four by two days so that I can make the most of this break away. Even if I have to spend all weekend in bed, writing in my pyjamas, I shall be there. Writing!!!! Oh my goodness, I adore crafting words into stories and learning tools. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s agony. Writing has been a deep and abiding love in my life since I was a small girl.

My plan for the weekend is to create an editing schedule for the fiction manuscripts I’ve finished in the past year, rework my writing plan for my next memoir instalment and my non-fiction books that are still all in pieces, and then I will start work on something completely new – an idea that has me totally abuzz. Goodness, I am SO grateful to have my mind back, and to be able to finally write well. Taking these horrid drugs for my lyme disease, although wretched, has been totally worth it just for that simple fact – my brain is working again after too many years of being a barren wasteland. As my health is slowly returning I can write! My memory works, my imaginative is technicolour instead of monochrome, and words that long eluded me are now flowing from my fingertips.

I feel like a kid about to go on a long-awaited school camp. My bag is packed. I have my journals, my file cards, my favourite pencil case and my writing laptop (the one with no games, work, emails or other distractions).There’s a box full of food. I’ve baked a cake. And I managed to sneak some chocolate in with the farm-fresh vegetables.

Let the fun begin. 🙂

What are you doing over the weekend? I really hope you can find a little time to work on your dreams too! Lots of love to you, Nicole xx