Writing in St Ives

Last week I spent a magical five days in St Ives on a solo writing trip, working on the fourth novel in the Shell House Detectives mystery series. I’ve been thinking of a new word for ‘retreat’ as it suggests seclusion and withdrawal and while there is certainly a lot of that - my word count targets are always steep - when I go to Cornwall it’s also about getting out IN it.

It’s about filling up my cup - heart and soul - relinquishing responsibility and living purely by my own rhythms (and I know just how lucky I am to be able to drop it all and do that). And it’s about revelling in all the things that make this corner of the world so special to me, too. Reliving memories: family holidays over the last decade - the sadness of change, but also the joy of this place being part of our folklore; trips with friends, too, and all my past solo writing retreats (again, new word required!) - the different books I was working on at different times, the highs and lows and highs of the writing life. I go to all my favourite spots - coffee shops, bars, restaurants, shops, galleries, rocks, views, beaches - and most of the time, my novel comes too, whether it’s my laptop beside my lunch plate, or turning over plot as I stomp the coast path.

Over my five-day trip my notebook has filled, chapters have unfolded, characters have shown me what they’re really made of and my love for my work-in-progress has been properly ignited. I’ve also made up a serious shortfall in word-count. Can one word hold all of that? Maybe. Instead of ‘retreat,’ I’m going with ‘embrace.’ Embracing the place, embracing the work (including all the knotty bits), embracing myself, too. There’s a poem I love by Tess Gallagher called The Hug, and in it she says, ‘when you hug someone you want it to be a masterpiece of connection.’ A masterpiece of connection? Yes, this retreat, this embrace, has definitely been that.