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Four lessons in the bag this morning

I’m up to a lot at the moment.

After having had a four week break from running due to illness, I’m currently trying to recover the whole minute I’ve managed to lose off my km time but that aside, I’m ploughing through my novel, learning new skills and getting busier on the freelance writing front.

So, I snatched a few hours out of my busy schedule this morning to finish making this little bag, all thanks to my Christmas gift to myself – the very useful Bag Making Bible by Lisa Lam.

An extravagant use of time, I thought to myself sitting in front of my sewing machine post school run, but skimming the iron over the finished project at lunch time, I decided I’d learned/relearned a few lessons:

  • No matter how often you read the instructions, make meticulous notes or draw complex plans, the only way to learn something new is to get stuck in (and make mistakes).
  • Creative projects never sit in isolation (my novel notepad is now full of scribblings).
  • Doing what makes you happy probably will.
  • Maths is everything.
It might look chaotic but bag making and novel writing happen in the same space, both mentally and geographically
It might look chaotic but bag making/novel writing happen in the same space, both mentally and geographically
Hidden zip, hidden inside pocket, hidden cockups in the striking blue lining
Hidden zip, hidden inside pocket, hidden cockups in the striking blue lining

Rookie mistakes carefully stitched into the lining, I’m off out for my (slow) run.  It occurs to me that I have extra creative time today because my daughter is staying behind for her after school stitchcraft club this afternoon

As my Dad would say, she didn’t get it off the carpet.

Lisa Lam's brilliant guide to getting the bag you want
Lisa Lam’s brilliant guide to getting the bag you want
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A Cornishwoman on retreat – or how to fit Eat Pray Love into five days

Le Verger

Having read the book Eat Pray Love twice and seen the Julia Roberts film too many times to mention, I guess you could say that Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoire about discovery and fulfilment across Italy, India and Indonesia has always struck a resonant chord with me.
And never more so than now. Having left my son in his bed and my daughter on a railway platform with her father, I waved goodbye to my life for five days yesterday, in favour of sitting in an attic room in the Dordogne in front of an open window to finish my novel.

In the week leading up to my departure, while I was busy preparing myself for my trip and the household for its abandonment, something caught my attention: the number of family and friends who approached me and told me, quite independently, how this writers’ retreat would be about far more than finishing my novel. Quite flippantly, I’d smile and ask if they’d like another cup of tea/biscuit/roast potato.

But these words were not entirely lost on me. After the unreality of yesterday’s flight (my first ever) and sitting quietly watching the yellow evening light of the Dordogne basting the turning leaves and bracken before dinner, my old friend insomnia crept into my room in the night to remind me that these days are real and this is my life.

So, sitting in my bed watching the sun come up I’ve decided that what links Gilbert’s introspective tale of eating, meditating and falling in love to my own journey are the themes of trust, amnesia and a space for total immersion.

I don’t have a year and an ashram to explore these things but I did have the most delightful spaghetti dish for dinner last night and draw some comfort from the fact that every other writer here has left their children in the hands of someone they love in order to find the space they need to write.

Will I be able to sum up my trip in three simple words?  Will five days be enough to find myself?  Will I like what I find?

Who knows.  For now, it’s time to find my running shoes and get some Dordogne morning air before settling down at my desk in front of the window.

Le Verger
A small window with a huge view: David and Michelle Lambert’s quiet retreat at Le Verger offers writers time and space to set their ideas down.
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