Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, writing-related question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.
QUESTION: Running away to live in a foreign country and write is a fantasy I’ve heard many would-be novelists utter with a wistful sigh. If you could live anywhere for a year (and do nothing but write while there), where would you go?
Jamie Wallace: I’d have to go with somewhere in the British Isles. There are many more exotic destinations I could choose, but there is something magical about England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. So many of my favorite, childhood authors hail from those misty shores. Much of the folklore that lives behind the stories I hope to write springs from those lands – roots buried deep in moor and wood and rocky coast. I would love the chance to wander the hills in search of faerie rings. I would love to walk through the stone halls of ancient castles, trailing my fingers along the rough stone and wondering how many other fingers may have done the same over the eons. No matter where you are, writing requires the same perseverance, but I can’t help wondering if the air of the British Isles might not make it flow a wee bit more easily.
Diane MacKinnon: There are many places I could choose, but each place would have to satisfy two requirements: I’d have to be able to look out a big window at nature while I write (or just be outside), and I’d have to be able to get outdoors and move whenever I get stiff from sitting too long in one place. Once I went to a medical conference with my husband–only that time I didn’t participate in the conference, I wrote while he earned his CME credits. It was in Dominican Republic and I wrote until I felt like swimming, then I read writing magazines and books until I felt like running. Then I went out to dinner with my husband and all the interesting people he’d met over the day. It was an excellent writing retreat for me and I really think I could do it for a whole year. I’d love to try!
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Deborah Lee Luskin: Vermont – and I’m already there.
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Lisa J Jackson: I don’t have one particular place, as I love living in New Hampshire, but I do have a goal to live and travel the US and Canada in an RV. I want to explore all the wonderful places and share my experiences by writing about them. A year would be a great start, but I plan to be doing it for numerous years. My muse gets excited when I think about the travelling, I expect I’ll be ‘writing’ by doing video and audio recording just to keep up with all the words that will want to tumble out.
Wendy Thomas: Although I love living in New Hampshire, (I feel at peace among pines and peaks) if I could, I’d love to move somewhere that is warmer and near a beach. Actually I’d like to alternate between the mountains and water. I grew up near the shore, there’s just something about sand all over the floor (no matter how many times you sweep) that makes me feel at home.
Susan Nye: Just having a year to write without financial stress and worries is joy enough! That said … I ran away to work in Switzerland for a year when I was in my late twenties. It took me almost seventeen years to wander back. This time, I’d choose Provence or Tuscany. I love both these places. Each is beautiful in its own special way. The air feels different and the light is soft and golden. Time is defined differently, the pace is slower, more leisurely. The people are friendly and appreciate the good life. They work to live and not the other way around. Plus I’d be close enough to Switzerland that my old friends could come and visit. (Thanksgiving at Susan’s again!) And I could get up to Switzerland for a couple of weeks of skiing in the Alps.
I love the RV dream, in fact I eyeball the dealer down the steet
But I imagine sitting in front a huge window looking out onto a huge cliff with massive waves pounding the rock and internet access. Back to the RV, yes my dream to travel by RV and parking in a set of deep woods, by a river, bugs and all is appealing and still very much alive.
UP – Michigan with a view to Lake Superior
I have three main cities in mind: Singapore (a city/state, really), Hong Kong, Tokyo (or some other big city in Japan. Perhaps Kyoto, because there’s so much history there.)
I’ve been to both Singapore AND Hong Kong before, and loved being both places! I can imagine myself very easily settling into one of those cities as a writer for however long.
I just got back from Iceland and it was the most inspiring landscape I’ve ever experienced. I could definitely spend a year there just writing and exploring. Gorgeous.
Fort Davis, Texas, where we are now, is a “whole nuther country.”. House on a mountain top, come into town to buy groceries and eavesdrop on the locals. Not a lot of distractions, except spectacular clouds and mountains.
Maine (or so I think)!
South Africa, any where in the country, how lucky am I, I’m already there.
I am a Canadian in love with her country. So, I would choose to remain in Canada, in an area near a waterful. It does not have to be Niagara Falls, just water and waterfalls somewhere would be wonderful. I am not a swimmer, but I do love being by water…
Patricia
I would head to Denmark. I need to feel secure yet angsty to get into my writing zone.
I too am already there. Summertime aboard my narrowboat, travelling the UK waterways and winter on a bus in South Africa (their summer).
Doesn’t get much better than that.
I lived in England for a year. I would love to go back and actually spend the time writing. At the moment, I feel there are stories waiting on me in Kenya and India. Hopefully, I will at least be able to make a short trip a reality in the near future.
In a cabin, bungalow or small farmhouse, on a lake, trees and/or hills all around – long desk by a big window I could open when it was warm.
Quiet, sipping my morning coffee, watching the sun come up, listening to the birds, smelling the fresh air…thinking writery thoughts….
Don’t care where that is. The world is beautiful. I’ll go anywhere.
Mdina, Malta. With a visit, at a quiet time of day, to the Fontanella Tea Garden.
When it was my turn to give an assignment in a writer’s group, I asked everyone to write about being in a place that you had never been to before. It was a fun exercise for all of us. I manage to spend 3 months in India and 3 months in Mexico every winter…and don’t get nearly as much writing completed as I intend to!
Italy would be my choice – especially Rome and the surrounding area. I honeymooned in Florence, Rome & Venice and knew I had found my soul’s home…the country draw me to it and inspiration is not far behind.
I would choose Ireland, likely Dublin because I’m a city girl. I love how the Irish value writers and good books. Rain also gets my creative juices flowing, adn there’s no shortage of it in Ireland. If money fell on my head I would set up camp in Dublin in a heart beat.
I’d go to Paris. It’s such a beautiful city. The food is good and so much about it is artistically executed. Plus I couldn’t waste time having long conversations because my rudimentary French won’t permit it.
I would SO love to live in the mountains of East Tennesse or North Georgia!
Since I write mostly about Hawaii and Hawaiian culture, the Islands are the perfect place for me. However, I do wish I had a remote beach house rather than a Honolulu city condo. The gentle whoosh of the incoming tide, the sea breezes, the clean air—all would feed my creative soul.
I want to write “under the Tuscan sun” and every so often escape to a field of wild sunflowers and then run through it. Then again, I would not mind living on the island of Puerto Rico, high up on a mountain with a gorgeous view of the ocean. Either one would be my idea of heaven.
My thoughts exactly! (Plus, I love both the book and movie!)
Oh, I’d like somewhere deserted. A mozambiquan beach in off season, or snowed in, warm by a fire in a cottage in the mountains… Wouldn’t want to see a soul!
There is a place in the Pyrenees called Gavarnie that I have been to many times. In the heat of summer there is always snow on the top of the mountains. The melting snows create waterfalls that gush into a fast flowing river, icy cold and refreshing. There is a little chapel in a meadow filled with wild flowers. In the tiny village is a cafe with a panoramic view of the mountain range where you can drink exquisite hot chocolate while watching the black kites cruising the thermal currents. I would build a little wooden hut with a wood burner and stay there for a year if I could. I’m sure it is the closest place to heaven on earth that exists. It reminds me of the story of Heidi which I loved so much as a child, although the story was set in Switzerland!
…I live in Australia but was birthed in the UK …oh how I miss the softness of my country of birth, in terms of the mistiness at dawn or the howl of winter storms …it’s strange though as I ended up in a part of Oz that mirrors all of the things I love about what was once ‘home.’ My ideal would be to create the time to simply finish the next book in the series I’m writing and to sit in my little studio, with it’s 180 degree view to Mt. Wilson in the Victorian Highlands as I have, in effect, created the space to write my proverbial ‘a’ off, just not the time as yet …but soon!