meanwhile, back in canada...

My day started with a text... 

challenging channeling changing

Being a writer is a bit like being a schizophrenic. There are alway so many voices in your head.

Mine won't shut up. They are in some limbo yard, chattering and running and jumping at the walls to try to climb over and and jump for a chance to live a life on the page. They just want to be heard.

It's easy to see how writers are prone to maladies and madness. 

The solitude from which you feed also feeds from you. 

Nourish and deplete.

These self imposed writer retreats are much that way. 

When I spend a lot of time in the head of my characters it starts to affect my mood. I can become dark if their stories are dark ones. 

This is why it takes me so long to commit to sit. 

I know that once I do, it will spread like an ink drop in a glass of water. That's how I see the darkness enter me- swirling slowly down in a beautifully hypnotic process

But if I don't let it come out through my tapping fingers, the voices won't stop. 

The only way to make them quiet is to tell their stories. It's hard to say if it is an channeling or performing an exorcism. Chapters write themselves in my head, but only seeing the words in physical form will do. 

So that's what I am doing in my little retreat by the ocean in a winter storm- trying to free some souls and quiet some voices.

And walk that thin dark line.

my sweet retreat

storm stayed stay

There is something so lovely about being storm-stayed.

As children we long for storm days (only on school days of course) and even as adults we find ourselves saying that little wish before we go to bed the night before.

It provides that permission we don't often afford ourselves, that allowance to just do nothing. Or at least, not be held to any obligations. An official No Pants Day.  

Since before this day saw light, the Atlantic region has been getting the weather that was promised. A winter storm with icy breath sharing its snow and rain in many different forms. 

We Maritimers take our weather seriously.

The day before a storm always sees line ups at grocery and liquor stores. Many times the storms don't amount to much as the ocean can cause the forecast to change, but no one wants to take the risk of being storm-stayed without the essentials. 

I am cozy.

I'm sitting in a cottage by the ocean watching the storm hit the sea and the sea throw it back. Inside, the smell of the wood fire mixes with the aroma of simmering corn chowder and freshly ground coffee. CBC fills the air with classical music in the day and jazz in the night. 

Not a bad way to spend a stormy weekend. It was my hope to get stranded here, to use this as a writer's retreat. 

Sure I have solitude in my city apartment, but for some reason I feel more like a writer out here. I am definitely more inspired. At home there are always distractions- I should clean this, rearrange that.

But here, inspired by nature's ocean and elements, I find I can get more done.
Don't get me wrong, I love my little desk in the city, overlooking the downtown street, but a change of scenery is always good to reboost the creative process. 

febuary blew in

February 1 had winds so strong they could blow a wave right off the ocean

I don't care if it hurts to stand here