My lovely, nebulous book is trying to tell me what it finally wants to become, now that the research trips are complete, notes have been gathered and chapters drafted. I strain to hear its whisper amongst the clatter of family life and so feel a growing need to hide, to disappear into a writing cave—to take myself into the dark. All those months that seemed so manifold during the initial meeting with my publisher have spun away from me, and my manuscript deadline looms.
As soon as the glitter and bustle of Christmas is over for another year, I will be ready to make my escape. The strange, still, liminal days between old year and new are a perfect time for hiding and dreaming. No longer afraid of the dark, I now welcome its embrace. I don’t know what I will discover there but I am ready to find out; the dark is inky, velvet-soft and soothing. It is rich with mysteries, and at this moment in my search for story, the unknown is what I seek.
And so I am taking myself away, to a place where land and water meet sky. A place of light, calm and—yes—of fog. There, where the canal runs alongside the river, a barge is waiting for me. With only my laptop for company, I will live for a few days on this boat (which my parents are in the process of renovating) as I work on the book’s final chapters. Warmed by a woodburning stove, lulled by gentle movement, I’ll be accompanied only by ducks, gulls and—if I’m lucky—a heron. A writing retreat is perhaps too grand a term for this makeshift, stolen alone time—but I will be retreating to write.