It’s been a busy Christmas break. We’ve had a lot of running around, looking at furniture, and cleaning the house (which we’ve taken to calling Wuthering Heights because it’s up on a hill and is very windy), but somehow I’ve managed to type up the rest of my novel notebook, and even do some writing. So far, the document runs to 36,000 words. I’m happy with the way things are going. If only I could hold on to that feeling, bottle it up for whenever I need it.
Here are some photos I took on the way down. The winds were 7 or 8 Beaufort, and there was a possibility that we’d be stuck in the harbour till it passed. The Festos is a big ship, and we didn’t really feel anything. The waves don’t really give you a sense of how windy it was out on the deck.
On Boxing Day we went for lunch to a taverna up on a mountain in the Episkopi region, near an evergreen forest that was planted some years ago. The food was very good, and there was a fireplace in the middle of the room. I took this picture of the valley below from the balcony, where tables are set in the summer.
If you could bottle that feeling up and sell it, you’d never have to work again; just write write and write some more.
Oh, and congrats on your impending marriage.
I envy you your ability to keep a novel notebook and to have a plot in mind. I have tried to work that way but can’t. It is by far the best way to write, I think, given my experience and the experience of friends who have a lot of the novel in their heads before they set out to write the novel.