On Retreat - Arvon - The Clockhouse - Day 2

For as long as my back can take it, I pile the cushions up and sit in the window. I'm not sure that's the intention, but the sills are deep and I like building a nest. I sit there with my coffee and notebook, and watch other solo writers walk the grounds, trying to unknot some tangle in their plot or find inspiration around the pond. Sometimes they look up and I wave and smile like an idiot. Sometimes wasps fly into my forehead and I fall off, back into the room.

The silence is punctuated with baa-ing sheep.

Yesterday's breakfast exercises were both painful and necessary. I ended up writing about my Dad buying my my favourite book, crying on the National Express, a girl who finds a skeleton in her brother's room and a woman who can't have children. Words were dragged out, clinging on, petulant things.

Something changed during the day. I spent most of it reading the autobiography of a Private Investigator of missing people cases. After a few hours of reading, I knew how one of my useless, destined for the red pen and the chop characters, was going to suddenly become indispensable and interesting. I discovered a way to raise the ante. I randomly wrote the sentence, 'Flashlights in the dark, like low stars.'

In the afternoon I wrote an easy chapter where my character Poppy has just gone missing, and the locals organise a search party. I say easy, because it was there. The words didn't fight me, they wanted to arrive. There was no evidence of labour. I had broken through the pain. I didn't know how long it would last. One thing I've known for a while is that in order to do this, I have to be comfortable with all types of writing and manage to push through; shit writing which it embarrasses me to produce, lazy writing when I'm too tired, artificial writing which even I don't believe in. I have to trudge through, allow it, accept it, wait for better. Because it's often only by giving into that that I eventually reach a sun-filled clearing. The warm up is vital, but I usually quit during it.

At night, we drank wine and shared. I was comfortable but nervous. Jane is an incredible poet. We are all in such different places - she is relaxed and assured in her voice. I am battling with mine. Sheena is just starting to experiment with hers. Laura is staring up at the mountain of her book and prepping for the climb. What did we talk about; can creative writing be taught, tamagotchis, rap, Brexit, the quality of our sleep, habits, exasperation, Ophelia.

I went to bed, late, tipsy, checked in with my novel. The last sentence I'd written sober, 'An old pair of willies don his feet.'