Day Sixteen – Starting to Wind Down

It’s hard to believe I have now been in France for two weeks. And I have only a week left of the residency! It is the absolute worst sort of cliche to say it, but time does move quickly.

And overall, in spite of some drama that the staff of the chateau dealt with swiftly and decisively, it has been a great experience. I am in a beautiful location with significant time to work. There are scheduled activities, which are useful, fun and not intrusive. And I have met some wonderful people. People I hope will remain my friends after our departure next week.

Later this week, we will have more writer’s circle meetings, an open mic performance (largely for the writers) and begin planning our writer’s showcase for Sunday. But right now, writers have time to continue to craft their work, and the visual artists are preparing for their final presentations and studio tours. The energy has shifted. Everyone can sense that we are winding down, and we are focusing on what we need to do to finish. We have accepted it will be over soon. Even if we don’t want it to be.

All of us, except Dusty. He will remain sovereign of this domain.

As for my writing, I completed the first draft of “The Dinosaur Thief,” and finished the revision of “October Surprise.” I now have the very excellent problem of having run out of things to work on. Everything I brought–even things I was unconvinced I would get to–are complete. So, I am going to spend the rest of the residency trying to figure out what new things I want to work on. And then do those.

On a completely unrelated note, I learned about an insect called the Eurasian Hummingbird Hawkmoth. This is absolutely the best name ever. I am a bit sad I missed the opportunity to use this name for my college era band. And like me, the Hawkmoth loves itself some lavender.