I have an opportunity today to write a journal entry. I don’t like blogging, but I don’t mind journaling. The difference is all in how I think of it, but there’s really no difference at all.

On September 25, we made our way to St. Andrews, only 20 minutes from the U.S. border. Not sure why I feel the need to say that, but it feels both safe and ominous at the same time.

It’s been a whirl of wind these past nearly two weeks as I conducted workshops and one-on-one meetings that will continue into tomorrow. Now and then, I’d snatch an hour or so to have a meal and catch up on work. It’s not just retreat-related stuff. I had a new book release this past Monday, and I’ve barely been able to begin to process what that means.

Life is busy. My life is pure, unadulterated chaos. And it needs to stop.

So, for now, I have brought myself to the artist studio in the woods (the “studio in the garden,” they call it here), and I am intent on putting the finishing touches on my next novel, The River in Winter, before submitting that version of it to my publisher. Today. I’ve been trying to do this for about six weeks now, and all that's required is a few hours of uninterrupted creative time. So, today, I will at least push the ball closer to the goal line.

There’s no wifi here and no running water. Feels like I’m in Granny’s shed out be the see-ment pond. But it might be just what I need for a few hours.

Something about Thoreau comes to mind: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover, I had not lived.”

Treatment

I just came back from a walk on a warmish early spring evening. It was exactly what I needed.

I've spent all of this Sunday working, working, working - as I spent Saturday, Friday, and every day before that. Weekends tend to be the busiest. How strange is that?

Rhetorical question, of course. It's very strange.

I walked alongside the still-frozen lake that confirms how bitterly cold and long this winter was, since the entire body of water had turned to solid ice, from sun-chewed surface to muddy bottom. And, as I ambled - walking stick in my grip to ward off potential coyotes, bears, or other creatures that might want a piece of my weary flesh - I thought of what an evening this would be for writing.

Writing is who I am, what I've always been. I was born inquisitive and simply grew more insatiably curious as I grew up. The fact that I write some of it down, now and then, is simply fulfillment of my contract with myself. Not with the universe, who doesn't give a shite if we write or binge Netflix all weekend long - but with myself.

I did some writing yesterday, and I'm proud of that, particularly after visiting the local high school on Friday and was asked by one writing student: "How many hours would you say you write in a day?" I gave an honest answer ("Right now? None, because life is so busy being an author and university teacher and doing the freakin' dishes and laundry." That's a paraphrase, though.) I prefaced that response, of course, by saying, "When I was young and prolific, I wrote for several hours every single day, birthdays and Christmas included." But, now, the sad fact is that I'm too busy to write every day.

Something's changing for me, though. During this semester - in which I not only taught university courses and put off an exhibition at the AX, Arts and Culture Centre of Sussex gallery, which took many months of planning and execution -  I forced myself to write whenever I could, and sometimes, most often, even when I felt I couldn't.

The result is that when this semester ends, I'll more easily slip into my writing clothes. For a couple of decades now, when the academic year ended, I would look forward to a summer of writing, but it would always take 3-4 weeks before the exhaustion of the teaching year had left my brain and bones. This time, I feel different. I did a little writing this evening - "no time, Granny, no  time!" I hear the wolf explain to Red's grandmother on The Bugs Bunny show - "Land's sake, Wolfie - aren't ya gonna eat me?" she asked. He pulls her out of bed and shoves her into a closet (or maybe under the bed - I don't remember. I'd Google it, but I don't have time) and says, "No time, Granny, no time!" I feel that way a lot - no time for obedience to my nature and nourishment, only time to react to the latest crisis.

But I made time. You have to make time. It's what matters. It's what separates us from the beasts - or the rest of humanity - that driven devotion to scribble things down so we can figure it out and before we forget, and before we grow too old and feeble, or die altogether.

I was reminded of that fact today, again: we all die.

Fuck. I was reminded. And I hate that fact. There's no beauty in that for me. I found out the husband of a friend has cancer. He'll be okay, apparently, after treatment. But, then, I'm not sure any of us really are okay, regardless of treatment - maybe treatment is the problem, to begin with. We're all in remission. We all need a cure.

This is mine. Walking. Running. Writing. Thinking. Breathing. Feeling. Knowing. Hoping.

Where I walk doesn't matter.
Where I run won't wait forever.
What I write depends on what the muses are smoking that day.
What I think evolves with each word I write, every word I listen to, every face I remark.
What I breathe depends too much on big business and government, but I can choose where.
What I feel is urgency. Tiredness. An overwhelming need to say something true and let it ring out.
What I know is too dark for words.
What I hope is that I am wrong about many things.
But everybody knows what they think they know.

Capture and release

I feel the need to blog again. There’s something in the air these days that makes me want to get it all down before it’s gone. Maybe, someday, the internet won’t be there either – I expect that day will come. So, if I told myself I’m writing for some future world, I’d be mistaken. I’m writing for the moment and for anyone who wants to read it in between busy hours.

The Fountain of Trevi

My new mission will be to keep it short. That way, I can say more.

Brevity is relative, though.

In the past few years, so much has changed in my life, and I feel there’s greater change ahead – just different kinds of change.

I strive for authenticity but often fail. Most days, I’m more like Icarus. I reach for the sun and go crashing to the earth. But I started out on earth, so assuming I survive the crash, the quest was the wiser choice.

I’m just trying to figure it out for myself, to make sense of it all. I’ve been blessed in the past five years to have visited some of the greatest cities on earth – NYC, Dublin, London, Florence, Rome, with more travel to Lilydale, NY this coming July and Scotland on the horizon this fall. I remember the quieter moments the most – a boat tour on Loch Gill past Innisfree, a walk through the olive groves in Chianti, a self-satisfied ale at The Bleeding Horse – and always the train ride past open fields, pastural landscapes. More and more, I feel like it’s passing me by – that I need to capture it all as it goes – as I go stumbling through this world on great, ungraceful, mad-flapped wings.

Under the Tuscan clouds

Although, maybe that’s not quite true. I have my moments of serenity. My last night in Tuscany, the air had erupted in windstorm, and the rain was as fresh as a newly unsealed can of coffee grounds. The aroma was similar. But I sat there overlooking the benighted vineyards and wrote a goodbye poem to that place, that adventure, and to the version of myself that had come to that region in the hope – and with the earnest expectation – that it would somehow change me forever. Mission accomplished, even if I couldn’t quite grasp it at that time.

The bus would be leaving for Florence soon. Janie and I would be staying there for only one night before taking the noon train to Rome. But I found my moment. As I always do, I felt the pull of staying forever, simultaneous to the pull of moving on.

Catching the sun in flight

I’m trying to say something here, and I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s this: time is infinite, but we are not.

My feelings are a kite that depend on the direction and fury of the wind that day, each hour. My thoughts are clouds that sometimes float like those of a soft summer sky, sometimes threaten to burst like those darker clouds that form like murder over the lake and then keep moving on without spilling a drop.

That’s the mood of the moment, in fact, as I write this. Sometimes, very rarely, those clouds erupt with hellfire rage, dance rain like a midnight cloudburst over crowded Times Square, roar like a blizzard that turns to freezing rain during a risky book tour, or shift and shimmer with wondrous thoughts that send me to the page or the screen, inspired to write, wherever I am. Those latter brainstorms are precious to me. I need to rest, but I don’t. There’s too much to do.

Post-storm sky

There are many kinds of clouds, as Joni Mitchell would agree; it depends on how you look at them. But the main thing, for a writer or artist of any kind, is to look at them with sincere curiosity, and to do something about it – even if doing means doing nothing, with purpose or, if possible, without.

For the previous, much older posts, go to: http://gerardcollinsblog.blogspot.com/

How many more sleeps?

Sometimes, you just need to go and write.

Two weeks from today, our band of travellers from North America will take Ireland by storm when we arrive at Clontarf Castle Hotel for five dark and stormy nights – or whatever fine weather we can get – and then make our way West together, a ragtag bunch of dreamers full of grand ideas, lively talk, earnest music, and good Irish food and drink.

 

In March 2016, we started planning – and Go and Write ™ was born. We could have gone just about anywhere, but, as far as I was concerned, the first retreat had to be in Ireland and, therefore, I wanted a castle for “the perfect writer’s retreat.” Much to my surprise, with the help of Freedom Travel, we made it happen. And that was just the beginning of our conjuring. This entire trip really is a testament to the power of magical thinking.

Ireland is the perfect location for a writing retreat, for it has been the land of my dreams ever since I was a boy growing up in rural Newfoundland. My people are from there. The name “Collins” is derived from Cúchulainn, a hero of Irish mythology. Michael Collins is the penultimate Irish freedom fighter from West County Cork. My father’s family were from Ireland; my mother’s family were from Ireland, and the place I grew up is as Irish as any place that isn’t actually Ireland. The Emerald Isle was in our talk, in our music, in our very faces and brains. In grad school, I wrote about Ireland for the first time – a creative nonfiction memoir that connected all these pieces, with the focus on rebellion, but I never finished it. The story ends in Ireland, but I’d never been there and, so, here I go to the land of my ancestors – and I’m bringing 18 other people with me, each of whom has their own reason for making the journey, and I feel privileged to have been entrusted with those dreams.

The castle, yes. Just the other day, I awoke to the thought: On a Saturday morning in a couple of weeks from now, I’ll be waking up in a castle… in Ireland, on Dublin’s doorstep. And I thought of the writers who’d lived there – James Joyce’s Dubliners, in particular inspired my own short stories, while Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, Seamus Heaney, Frank McCourt, Roddy Doyle, Colm Toibin, among others, also found a way into my heart and mind. Then I thought of the famed Trinity College, the Book of Kells, St. Stephen's Green, St. Patrick's church, The Guinness Factory, and, not too far away, the ancient Newgrange, and out to the West, the famed Cliffs of Moher, the Burren landscape, and The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

Newgrange - older than Stonehenge

But all those new friends we’ll make – that’s probably the most satisfying part. It’s those quiet conversations during the long evenings with a drink or a meal, maybe near a fireplace, that are the real treasure of any retreat, even beyond the writing workshops and one-on-one conversations – it’s the writers sitting around a table or living room sharing stories and thoughts. On any tour that includes hotels and buses, people will naturally get to know each other. But when you add in that most of these fellow travellers are writers, who naturally are curious about other people’s lives and the world, that some of us are also musicians and singers, that Dublin is the pub capital of the world – well, I have no doubt this will be the journey of a lifetime.

There’s always a plot twist, though, and this is mine: in mid-December, I suffered a concussion. Even then, I felt fortunate that it hadn’t happen in February. But in January, after a couple of setbacks, a neurologist told me I would need “a miracle” in order to be able to do all the work required of me in advance of this trip. Just a few weeks before the trip, I was still in pain and unable to work, though I never doubted I’d get it done somehow. Then, one day, the fog lifted and I was able to work for a few minutes without pain. The next day, it was a couple of hours. Now, exactly two weeks before the trip, I’ve read all the submissions from each writer who is taking part in this retreat. It seems I got my miracle, and for that I’m grateful.

So, in two weeks we’ll be getting on that plane, flying to Toronto, then soaring across the Atlantic Ocean – reversing the migratory excursion that many of our ancestors made by ship many decades ago. We’ll get cozy at a 12^th century castle for five nights, doing lots of writing, talking, and sightseeing, among other things – and then we’ll head out towards Sligo and Ennis, stopping at the Cliffs of Moher, Galway City, Limerick, the Burren, and so much more, including some spots that inspired Yeats – the greatest poet of the twentieth century.

 

I’ve written about all this before. But it’s just now becoming real – we’re actually going. I’m not immune to the excitement I’ve been hearing in all the emails and Facebook posts I’ve seen from this group of Go and Write travelers. As the founder of this feast, I’m just as thrilled and wide-eyed as everyone else.

When I was growing up, my family didn’t have much money. A trip to the capital city, St. John's, was a rare opportunity. An ice cream from the store down the road was a treat. When it came time to go to university, I eventually needed student loans in order to get there and, later, I received scholarships in order to attend graduate school. Traveling was always in my heart and in my mind, but up until recently, it had just never happened. But lately, I’ve come to realize that life is short and if you have a yearning to go somewhere, you can make it happen. So, with a lot of help from a few people, this is happening.

Hold onto your golden tickets – we’re going to Ireland.

And, no, we won’t forget to write.

Time to Write in Ireland

Dr. Gerard Collins, author

Now and then, someone will skim the itinerary for our writing retreat in Ireland and ask the excellent question, "How will I get any writing done?" I've responded to each person in a private email, and each time, that person has signed up for the retreat.

When Ellen Tucker, owner of Freedom Tours and Travel asked me put together a writing retreat for 2017, I designed it as "the perfect writers' retreat". I chose Ireland because it's a country steeped in cultural and literary history and because I have a personal love for the country of my ancestors. Where I come from (Placentia, Newfoundland on Canada's East coast), the dialect and culture are descended from Ireland, with a touch of French, Portuguese and English, as well. But my people are decidedly Irish in both brogue and philosophy.

Clontarf Castle Hotel

Once we'd agreed on Ireland as the destination, I knew what came next. "We have to stay in a castle," I said. Ellen was totally on board. I was certain that most writers would see it as the experience of a lifetime - the opportunity to stay at a castle in, or near, Dublin. We researched all the possibilities, and the one that stood out was Clontarf Castle Hotel, near Dublin and with shuttles running regularly into the city and back, so you're free to come and go as you wish. We'll be staying there for five nights, which will allow us to settle in with our writing.

The important bit here is that our first workshop takes place early during our five-night stay at Clontarf Castle. That way, we get into the creative head space almost immediately. Also, while at the Clontarf, I'll be meeting with each individual participant in a one-on-one session to discuss their writing. At that point, I will already have read your ten-page (double-spaced) writing sample and written extensive commentary. I'll be giving you a copy of my commentary, and we'll talk for an hour or so about what you've written, where it might go from there, what your overall plans are for the project, and about your writing in general.

While the workshops are a key part of the retreat, I've often been told that the one-on-one sessions and personalized feedback, combined, are the most valuable part of the experience. I conduct them early on so that you can begin to focus on your project and allow yourself to be inspired as we go, with your own writing at the forefront. (I listen to feedback - past retreat participants have told me they feel that the retreat only truly begins for them after they've had the one-on-one, which they find to be invaluable. So, instead of spreading them out over several days, I'm holding these sessions as early as possible so you can get the most out of them.)

So, already, by only the third day or so, you will have:

1. Decided on a project you want to work on both during the retreat and for some time after,
2. Submitted a writing sample,
3. Had a one-on-one session with me,
4. Received spoken feedback about your writing,
5. Received written commentary on your ten pages, and
6. Had a creative writing workshop with the entire group.

Group meal

Let's consider the workshop. You'll be spending time in the company of other people who value writing as a useful endeavour and, to most, a journey of the soul. Let's face it - if a person is willing to spend around $5,000 and ten days or so of his or life on a writing retreat in the company of other writers, they're serious about writing. To attend a writing retreat and/or workshop is an act of faith, a contract with oneself, to take one's writing seriously, if only for those few hours. So, we talk to each other. I lead a discussion about a particular aspect of writing that I hope, and expect, you'll find useful for your own writing. I don't usually reveal the precise topic until I've read everyone's writing samples and gotten a sense of what kind of subject matter might benefit the group as a whole, as well as most individuals in a very specific way. Thus, the workshop is tailored for the participating writers. Lots of talking, lots of whirling, swirling ideas - sharing of thoughts and snippets of writing done right on the spot.

There'll be writing exercises, which will sometimes relate to your own writing project, get the most out of you and nudge you into thinking in different and various ways about what you've already done and might do. We'll draw inspiration from the very surroundings of a castle in Ireland, surrounded by a history and culture that asserts its own magic upon your imagination.

There'll be assignments, including worksheets you can keep, both within and outside the workshop. Sometimes, the writing exercises will lead you directly back to your room at the castle or a nearby pub or coffee shop to keep on writing. I always find that, when the workshop is done, people don't want it to end. They've started writing something potentially wonderful and just want to keep doing it. So, I encourage that behaviour.

Keep in mind that, at this point, you've been at a castle for a few days. Your one-on-one session is only for an hour. The workshop is 2.5 hours.  The rest of the time is yours to do whatever you wish. I'll be prompting you towards writing whenever possible, but I can't (and won't, and do not want to) be your keeper. My job is to lead you towards writing, to inspire you, to offer insight and guidance into your own writing process, but your job is, and always will be to write.

After the fifth night at the castle, we'll arise in the morning and embark on a trek towards the west. We'll know each other fairly well by then, and the drive, I've been told, is less than three hours by private coach (arranged by Freedom Tours and Travel, as usual). I don't know about you, but whenever I travel by coach, train or plane, it's the perfect opportunity to do some writing - work on an outline, a character sketch, a new scene or draw inspiration from the adventure itself and write something completely new. You will likely surprise yourself with what comes out if you give over to the experience, simply watching the countryside roll by.

There's nothing like travel to prod the mind in a variety of directions, to put life into perspective, to make us feel both connected to humanity and yet disconnected enough to observe it and to write about it. You'll be a stranger in a strange and wonderful land, and that is one of the most useful states of mind for a writer, as it jolts your noggin towards fresh insights that will, much of the time, have you scribbling furiously.

Bring a pen and notepad, always. Carry your camera to take pics for later reference - both back at the hotel and when you get home, your head stuffed with ideas that will sustain you for months and years to come.

I feel I should mention that writers often tend to be solitary (sometimes even shy) creatures, and so, while you're always welcome to join us at the table or outside on a wee adventure, you can always choose to do something on your own - whatever suits your purposes and personality.

Of course, in the west we'll visit a few places like Galway, Innisfree, and a few haunts of dead and living Irish writers - all to create a maelstrom of thoughts that will send you back to your notepad, scribbling once again. Or maybe you'll just take notes for future writing. After all, one of the first rules of writing is that there's more to writing than just writing. Yes, you actually have to, at some point, make yourself sit down for a prolonged period of time to write (and we'll make time for that, just as you have to make time for it). But you need to immerse yourself in life, too, to be an observer of people, things, moments - to engage with people in a way you never would have if you'd stayed at home or gone to a workshop just down the road from where you live. Those activities are valuable, but if you choose to embark on a writing retreat in Ireland, you'll probably also want to see Ireland. In my mind, the doing usually leads to the writing.

This excursion is primarily a writing retreat, and that's how I've designed it. I would advise you to stay in your room some nights. Or, as an alternative - and as I will likely do - go to a pub (there's one at the castle, and one at the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis, plus plenty of other places - it's Ireland, after all) and watch people interact with one another, maybe engage a stranger (or a new writing friend) in conversation and that becomes the object of your scribblings. You'll have experiences there you'd never have anywhere else, least of all in your home office where many of you will return after all is said and done. "There and back again" is a tale that can be written only if you've actually gone somewhere.

So, we'll do all that. After one night in Sligo at the luxurious Clayton Hotel Sligo, we'll amble southward, do sight-see along the way, and finally arrive for a two-night stay at the fabulous Old Ground, with its grand history. There, we'll have our second 2.5-hour workshop, which, again, will inspire you in ways you might not have imagined. In between, both while traveling and standing still, we'll have had many conversations, you and I. However, some of the best conversations during writing retreats are those among the participating writers, themselves. They love travel, and they love writing, just as you do and often love nothing more than to talk about the things they love to talk about.

Some evenings throughout the retreat, we'll have readings from participants.You can read something (no longer than five minutes)

Reading

you'd written before the retreat or something you've composed that very day or week. And you're always free to abstain, of course. But what I have found is that these informal gatherings (with just a touch of formality, I suppose, as one would expect) always invite, and lead to, further discussion between the writers - myself, included, of course. Because the readings can be on any subject, from any genre, and from a variety of readers, the discussion always turns lively - and yet somehow quiet and intelligent, and these evenings, too, become a favourite part of the retreat.

After ten days of such writing, discussions, traveling and quiet time (sometimes, the travel is the quiet time), you'll no doubt feel your time is well spent. And you can (as many people choose to do) just go back to your room early to get some writing done, feeling inspired to the point of nearly bursting from all the wonderful talk. The hope and expectation, of course, is that you will do some writing every day at the time that is most convenient to you. I'll be nudging you towards this and, as I said, giving the occasional fun assignment, but it'll be up to you to find your pockets of creative time. They'll be there, just waiting for you to seize the moment - though sometimes, you'll have to make your own such moments happen.

I've left out a lot, such as the quiet moments alone, the stolen conversations between you and me about your writing dreams and goals, the worksheets you take with you, the memories that will come unbidden to you months from now as you write your novel, play or an unexpected poem,play, or article. There'll be many private moments and hours, many moments and hours with other members of the group and the entire group. There'll be music, too, for certain, as a few members who have already signed up are planning on bringing instruments with them or renting them after we arrive. Plus, it's Dublin: music is everywhere. And, whenever possible, I plan to incorporate Ireland into the writing exercises, aside from - or, in some cases, in conjunction with - your own ongoing project.

Listening

It might be difficult to imagine the small, soul-changing moments and yet, at the same time, all-too-easy to anticipate exactly how it will be. It'll be light and dark. There'll be that thing that someone quipped during a workshop, on the coach or during supper at the hotel that you can't believe they said. You'll miss your children, spouse or partner, but you'll also feel free to be yourself among great-minded people with no preconceived notions of who you are. It's like life to the tenth power - both sped up and slowed down, at various times.

You'll come out of wishing it had never ended, and yet glad to be home where you can take everything with which you've filled up your notebooks and your soul, your laptops and cameras, and  just keep on writing. Writing. And writing.

But you'll have been somewhere. Not just written there. But written of there. And you'll have truly experienced - felt and explored - something that you otherwise would not - you'll have stayed in an Irish castle, you'll have driven across the country with a band of merry writers in a private coach, you'll have stood at the Cliffs of Moher, visited Innisfree, and the grave of Yeats. You'll have stayed in some of the finest hotels in all of Ireland and eaten many fine meals, hoisted some pints, and heard some soulful music there. And you'll have been writing, scribbling, sketching, photographing, laughing, and imagining the entire time.

So, there's the answer to the question - where do we find time to write? If you still have questions, please contact me at gerardcollins@gerardcollins.ca or via Facebook. I'll be happy to talk to you about any concerns you might have.

For the many who have already signed up, welcome aboard. To those still thinking about it, I feel obligated to say there are only a few seats left. We aim to be filled up by Jan. 30 so that all hotels and plane tickets can be confirmed. After that date, if there's any room at all left in the retreat, it will be on a competitive basis. Before then, of course, it's all comers - but the comers are definitely writers who are looking for both inspiration and adventure and, in many cases, the writing retreat of a lifetime.

Gerard