Happy Equinox

Hello again,

You may have noticed I didn’t send out a newsletter last month. This was because I moved house! For the past three years, I’ve been living in a two-hundred-year-old granite cottage in the middle of a Cornish woodland. It offered me the most welcoming respite.

A passage comes to mind from Earthsea.

I would not say I was escaping evil. But I was seeking silence, and perhaps a sense of freedom in that I moved away from my hometown. I sought a different pace and lifestyle, which my cottage in the woods gave to me.

However, change is ever present in our lives and there came a point where it felt like time to move on. I have swapped the old cottage for one only half a century old, and the tangled, mossy woodland for sand dunes and the pounding surf. I am still in Cornwall, a little further west in Hayle, nestled in St Ives Bay. It is a joy to be so close to the sea again. There is something about it that resonates with me to my bones.

It will be a few more weeks until I truly feel settled, and you can read more about my move on my blog.

Time to take stock

The autumn equinox has just passed, and I recently blogged about how I used this time as a point of reflection and gratitude. I attune myself to nature’s rhythms and this part of the year is about harvesting fruit from this year’s labours and thinking ahead to the coming winter. Now it is time to take stock. What have I achieved this year, and what do I have to be grateful for?

House Move

My biggest accomplishment this year has been the house move. We made the decision to move in late 2022, aiming to go on the market in the spring. But once the decision was made, we realised there was little point in waiting. After moving during lockdown, I thought this would be easy. However, the author writing my story decided to throw in a few hurdles, because who doesn’t love a bit of added tension (not me, that’s for sure). But it all turned out good in the end, which is the main thing. I got my Happily Ever After.

I kept writing

One of my biggest hurdles is feeling guilty for setting time aside to write or do anything creative. I am a people pleaser, and always thought I should be doing something more beneficial (for others, not me). Thankfully, through a lot of perseverance, my inner people pleaser has pipped down now, which means I got a lot of words in, including starting this newsletter and continuing with my blog. What I am most excited about is my new WIP going by the working title The Guesthouse for the Lost and Found. Poignantly, I drafted this newsletter on the 24th of September, which is the birthday of my elder twin siblings who I’ve brought back to life and turned into characters for this story. I talk more about my ambition to give my siblings a full life in stories in my blog, Writing the Dead into Fiction. This isn’t a story I will finish anytime soon. But perhaps I will sow some seeds for winter and hope a completed first draft might emerge come next summer.

What am I grateful for?

I could write a very long list so I will keep this in theme with my newsletter.

I am grateful for the support in my creative endeavours.

Initially, I thought the writing process would be a lonely one. However, I’ve found support through my husband and my family, as well as the friends I’ve made through the online writing communities. I even got to meet one in the flesh when they flew over from Canada to visit the UK. That was awesome.

I am grateful for my overactive imagination.

It literally didn’t switch off when I exited childhood. But it makes me wonder, what do non-writers think about all day?

I am grateful for living in such a wonderful part of the UK.

Yes, Cornwall has a lot of negatives, but the positives balance everything out. I’ve got the sea, the moors, the fun geology, and a lot of ancient history on my doorstep. It inspires and feeds my creativity.

I am grateful for all the opportunities I have to be creative.

Acknowledging I have every opportunity to be creative is a catalyst to make me do something. It reminds me I have a choice in my actions and that is something I have control over. Like today, I chose to take both my sketchbook and notebook to the beach. I sketched the scenery, wrote a few pages for my current WIP, and then used the camera on my phone to take some photographs with the hope of using them as a reference for a new painting (once I have a room set up to paint in).

I am grateful for the time I have spent getting to know myself better.

A lot of this past year has been me rediscovering who I am. We gain all these identities through our relationships with others, and often society expects you to adhere to certain norms. These can dominate, and sometimes you need to take a step back so you can check in with yourself. Who am I? Who do I want to be? And how can I make that fit amongst all these other relationships and responsibilities I have?

So my friends, what have you achieved? What are you harvesting and what do you have to be grateful for? I would love to hear from you.

Much love

Emma