Here I am in Gladstones Library in Wales for a week of writing at the Milford Writer’s Writing Retreat. It has been a while since I’ve done something like this and I had quite forgotten just how enervating taking time out to write can be. It’s more than carving out time during the regular day, but just being here among so many books with other writers and just focusing on the work of writing has proven to be quite helpful in my process.
Before the diagnosis in 2022, I had been working on a couple of projects which I quite forgot all throughout treatment, so finding them again early in 2024 made me realise that I actually still liked these projects and they were stories that deserved to be finished. But coming to the Milford week, I was still torn on which project to work on.
In the end, I found myself drawn quite strongly to what I call the En story. I had been avoiding finishing it because the scale felt just so large. I realised that I have to acknowledge that it really is a novel. Not a novella, not a long short story, but a novel. It also means that writing in Gladstones works perfectly. I am in the process of putting together all the bits and pieces which I feel belong in this work and there it was staring me in the face…climate change. And what joy to be able to look through the library catalogue, head to the stacks, take all the books you think will be helpful and find exactly what you need for the huge thing you have been terrified about. It also helps a lot that one of my writer friends is a geophysicist and so I could send her a message saying: “uh…I have a question, help”.
It’s interesting to me too that the desk I’m seated at right now is located between two stacks of philosophers.
There is something about the moment and place of creation and how tapping into the source will bring you to the places/people/sources that you need in order to keep moving.
Working on the En story, I understand what it is about this work that terrified me. Now that I have the proper focus, I see how the world has always been comprised of opposing forces. Forces at a constant push and pull and forces that threaten to overwhelm each other. There is the nature that uses up worlds without thought or without care. It’s the kind of nature that discards without thought because when something is used up, there will always be another to take its place. It is the assumption born of privilege. There is another nature at place here too. It’s the nature of lifegiving and restoration and nurturing. Because the second nature is not brutal in nature, it’s often trampled on or made little of. But without the second nature, what would happen to our earth? What would happen to humankind? There is another nature somewhere in there and this is one wherein I hope balance takes place. I am working on it and my head is constantly busy with it.
A little while ago, I had a conversation with one of my Dutch friends. We talked about the balance between the realm of the spirit and the real world and how it’s easy to get caught up and lost in the spiritual, but we need to remember that we are also here in the real. It is the same with writing. My first drafts tend to be vague and starry eyed and not too grounded…more floaty and slippery than solid.
I started writing again in 2024 and it feels to me like I am learning all these things all over again. But what a joy to be able to do so. To be able to write and tell the stories I want to tell. Isn’t that a blessing?
Blessings and peace to you who read this. Agyamanac Unay for stopping by.
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