To have an uncluttered routine in which you can reflect, go for walks, focus on your creative work, eat simple, nourishing meals, and meet colleagues for a bit of light company, before you go back to your writing. Because you're one of my readers, I assume that you also feel a longing to go away somewhere, just to write. I try to do it at least once every year: I crave undistracted writing time, with limited internet access. Now I'm planning, applying, and wishing for some writing retreat opportunities in 2016. It was divine, and I wrote a third of my novel there. Last year, I spent a month in Spain with three other writers. I'm quite happy that the astrological conditions appear to be perfect for this. As it turns out, I'm craving time and space to go away and write, anyway. When I read my forecast for this lunar year - the Year of the Fire Monkey - this was the advice for tigers: Retreat. He looked at me and said, "That sounds good to you, huh?" At the last sentence, I put the book down with a blissful look on my face, feeling, as I often do after reading it, as though I'd just eaten a delicious piece of dark chocolate. I read those two paragraphs out loud to Ryan last week. I've read this passage of her book so many times, the page is softened and creased from all of the attention. This passage was written two months before I was born. Truitt was working at Yaddo for the months of July and August, 1974. I feel dizzy with longing.Īnne Truitt was an American artist known for her minimalist sculptures: tall columns, quite large, painted thickly in rich colours. When I read this description of Anne Truitt's experience at Yaddo, my body melts. Anne Truitt, from Daybook: The Journal of an Artist I read, or write letters, have another hot bath in the semidarkeness of my room, and sink quietly to sleep." Afterward I usually return to my solitude, happy to have been in good company, happy to leave it. It is heavenly to work until I am tired, knowing that the evening will be effortless. Late in the afternoon, I return to my room, have a hot bath and dress for dinner. At noon, I stop working, walk up through the meadow to West House, have a reading lunch at my desk, and nap. I dress, do my few room chores, walk to the mansion to pick up my lunch box (a sandwich, double fruit, double salad - often a whole head of new lettuce) and Thermos of milk, and walk down the winding road to my Stone South Studio. My whole body sings with the knowledge that nothing is expected of me except what I expect of myself. By this time, the sun is well up and the pine trees waft delicious smells into my room.
I wake very early and, after a quiet period, have my breakfast in my room: cereal, fruit, nuts, the remainder of my luncheon Thermos of milk, and coffee. "I have settled into the most comfortable routine I have ever known in my working life.
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