I'm going to a retreat in the South of France. A week to write, with no other obligations. And the story I will be writing is one that has been sitting in my brain, snuggled in that bump that sits just above my spine between my shoulder blades. Some days it feels so heavy I have a hard time holding my head up. This is a story that wants out.
This is a story that comes from the darkness of three years ago. A story of a woman who has it all. And loses it all. A story of the fall into darkness, the journey back to the light, the realization that home will never be the same, but it can still be home.
It is fiction. But it comes from truth. My truth.
I've been writing bits and pieces of this story for several years. It leaves me feeling drained when I'm done with a passage. I'm reliving my nightmare, to some extent. But it also feels like giving birth. The hardest work I've ever done, with a reward beyond compare at the end.
No book will ever compare to my children, but the process feels the same. So. I'm going away to a book birthing center. My due date is coming up and I'm getting uncomfortable carrying this baby around inside me. Will the birth be hard? Undoubtably, in some ways. In others, I expect it to be simple.
What I expect to get from sitting in the sun, in a medieval inn in the South of France, with the support of other writers, is to come home with a new book baby. On paper. It will undoubtably need a lot of care and feeding, trips to the doctor/critique group and guidance before it is ready to go out into the world. But you know what? I'm on familiar ground with that.
So, in two weeks, I'll be flying in to Barcelona, taking a train to France, and finding my way to a town of about 50 people in the hills of Southern France. By myself. With a few words of spanish and french to my name.
Time to practice my breathing techniques.
Love,
Chris