I just pressed full stop on two weeks of writing in solitude
“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work.To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in their creation.”– Ezra Pound
Being awarded a two-week Mornington Peninsula Arts and Culture writer in residency at Police Point has been the most precious gift.
To sit completely with a story that has for so long swirled inside my head. I can feel it settling and solid.
The leisure to feel a novel take shape and watch words cling to the page is remarkable.
33,000 words of a young adult novel has been written. A story that rattled around in my cranium for years and is finally on the page on draft form.
It’s not just the word count though, it’s the copious research and plot analysis during a writers residency that bury you deep within the process.
Wild winds in my little cottage at Police Point, Portsea next to Pt Nepean National Park have helped me hurl words across the page.
The breakthrough of theme and narrative with all this uninterrupted time has been remarkable.
I’ve held conversations with characters in hallways and as the kettle boiled in the kitchen. They came into the light.
Conjuring a world and a story is a process of relentless focus and origami-like folding of layers, questioning ‘what if’.
There’s been a tonne of broody walking, nature watching, unfolding old scribbled notes, hitting the delete button, muttering imagined conversations, limb posing to find the perfect adjective and much cheese eating.
I now have something substantial to keep shaping that I believe in, and will see through to the end.
I feel sure in my guts young adult readers will feel this story too. At the very least, it’s been one of the most profoundly creative times I’ve had.
Gratefully exhausted. Creatively fulfilled!
Thanks to the Mornington Peninsula Arts and Culture Mornington Peninsula Shire for this opportunity and investment in my writing.