My writer's group has been coming to
Maggie's Hill for our writing retreat for the last 5 years. This weekend was our annual spring retreat. It was lovely, relaxing. It brought me back into writing and into this new structure that I'm trying out for my novel. I've decided to add a frame to the novel - the protagonist (Autumn) is 50 years old and living on a lake at the retreat that the Starr group bought. She has taken on some of the role of the cult leader Zoryana (who she vanquished in the story).
I wasn't super crazy disciplined writing like I have been at some writer's retreats. I did have a great writing day on Saturday with quite a few real chunks of prose and good sense of how I'm going to integrate the existing text into this new frame, but today (Sunday) I'm feeling a little slow and low and not really able to get myself back into it. It could be because I drank a bottle of wine last night which I haven't done in months, or it could just be that I've exhausted my ability to write the novel right now. I'm going to honour the feeling and just write a few blog posts since I haven't been adding a lot of posts lately.
I am so grateful for my writer's group. It is such a joy to have other people who know the drive and pain of writing and creativity. They are all great writers and I trust their advice and thoughts on my work. I'm sure without them I would have abandoned the novel by this point. They encourage, commiserate, and just get it. Writing is an incredibly lonely art form and sharing the difficulties and triumphs with a group softens that loneliness a little.
I went for three long walks while I was out here. We are near Cooking Lake and the house is surrounded by forests, fields, and wetlands. The birds are all returning and the water was frozen on the day I arrived and is now almost completely melted. Everything has the muted browns and grays and beiges of plants dead through the winter, but a hint of green is emerging on the ground and high up in the waving branches of the poplar and birch trees. Soon the green will burst out in all its glory and all its hues.
I wish I could capture this landscape, the way the hills roll, but only gently as if they have decided to stay subdued so the sky can dominate - its beauty like an endless cloth constantly shifting with the wind.
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