Writer’s Exile

It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Kia Ora! I’m here in Queenstown, New Zealand, working on a residency application and wondering why I only seem to be able to make progress on this damn novel when I’m far, far away from Boston.

Portland, Oregon.

Lyon, France.

Zermatt, Switzerland.

And now here on the southern edge of New Zealand’s South Island; sixteen time zones, a continent, an ocean, and a hemisphere away from dark, frigid New England.

I’m sitting in the hostel dining room working on my declaration of intent, which poses the question, “How do you intend to utilize your time at **** Residency? Why is a residency at **** important to you at this time in your career?”

It’s a good question.

Why do I need a residency to complete this novel? Why do writers need residencies at all? I was snickering to myself while crafting my response to the question. “Lol. Writer’s Residency? More like Writer’s Exile.”

Up top!

Because that’s what they really are. What they seem to be, in my life at least. I go somewhere far, far away from Boston, a city where I’m simultaneously underemployed, stressed, and bored, and work on Hand Magic in a wonderful state of not-euphoria.

Nope. Definitely not euphoria. But peace.

Far from my apartment, where I’ve lived with two roommates for almost three years. Far from my humdrum routine of applying to engineering jobs in a comically unfriendly early-career job market, working the occasional retail shift, and patching together dog-walking and house-sitting gigs for additional cash. Far from the everyday struggle. Far, far away from the housefire that is the current United States of America.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’d happily go on a Writer’s Exile in the states, but it’s actually more expensive than Europe/anywhere else when you factor in lodging, meals, and transportation. I don’t have a car. In America, that’s insanely limiting. In Europe? Completely unnecessary. Which, aside from be logistically excellent, is also mentally freeing. The past three years have felt pretty claustrophobic, confined to Boston and whichever of its suburbs are accessible by commuter rail. But outside of North America, I don’t feel that sense of confinement. Perhaps that’s why my creative energy unbinds when I get there.

Good old Writer’s Exile. Nothing but a suitcase (or in this case, a 38-liter trekking pack), my laptop, and the cheapest hostel or campsite my pennies can buy. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me to get this done.

In Lyon, I wrote five chapters of 4,000 words each. 20,000 words total, about one-fifth of a typical fiction novel on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. It took me a week and a half to do it. Four months later in Zermatt, I wrote another two and a half chapters in the four days before my family showed up to go on a ski vacation. Again, an average of 4,000 words each. Just me and my laptop in the dining room of the cheapest mountain hut I could find in the area (not cheap) at the highest altitude I thought I might manage without crippling mountain sickness (8,500 feet). I slept through the hotel breakfast every day in the six-person bunkroom in the basement, noshed sparingly on the nonperishable food I’d bought at Aldi in Zurich, drank grocery store cans of Swiss lager I chilled in the snowbanks around the patio area, and in the evenings, I feasted on the three-course dinner included in my reservation.

And whenever I wasn’t doing those things, I was writing.

So as you can imagine, I was writing a lot.

As of now, I have nine chapters of the second draft of “Hand Magic” finished. That’s about one-third of the novel. I’m plugging along! It isn’t easy. But it’s happening.

Still, despite the success of these Writer’s Exiles, I continue to dream of a different life. One that I don’t have to run away from in order to find the right headspace to do the things I want to do. One that’s perfect right where I am. I’ve had it before, so I know it exists. But there’s a few things this life requires that I don’t have now.

Money. Not a huge amount, but enough to not feel stressed on the daily.

Novelty. New experiences, new places to explore, new friends, new goals.

Beauty. This is a broad category. For me, it’s sunlight. Golden afternoons and orange-pink sunsets. A certain quality to the air that I remember from Salt Lake City, my first home. I’ve found this beauty in cities and in the mountains. I’d like to one day live somewhere that has both.

So I suppose that’s what I really need to look for, instead of cheap hostels on the other side of the planet from Boston. I need a challenging, fulfilling job (money) in a place that can provide these things (novelty and beauty) for me. Ha. Isn’t that what everyone is looking for in the end?

God willing one of these hundreds of job applications pans out and I finally transition into the corporate world and escape debt and start growing wealth. Perhaps I’ll finish this book before that happens. Perhaps not. But I will finish, even if I have to take a dozen more Writer’s Exiles to do it.

Thanks for reading, everybody! Best of luck on your WIPs, your residency apps, and your day jobs.

xx Claire