Textick

So I’m alone in a creepy, heritage-listed house. I promised myself I wouldn’t freak myself out, but then I see a flash of something in the corner of my eye, or I hear a creak that I haven’t caused, and my heart gives a teensy flutter . It’s okay, I’ll be fine. After all, I’m a writer. Anything that happens will simply make a great story.

This is my first day as a writer-in-residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre in Greenmount, Western Australia. After an ordeal getting here, I finally pulled into the two-car gravel parking lot to face my new home for the next two weeks. It’s different to what I had pictured. I’d imagined a reclusive, picturesque manor sprawling across lush green acreages. All the furniture would be antique, and all the doilies freshly ironed. So perhaps my fantasies were a little unrealistic. Actually, in all honesty, I don’t even know that that was my fantasy. It was just the vision I got when made to imagine “Katharine’s Place.”

Instead I got red gravel, not cobblestones, and a dark, cobwebby old house, not a romantic country manor. Basically, it’s not picturesque, it’s “rustic.” And I was so much happier! So much atmosphere, so much character! I much prefer a house with a story than a house which has been so renovated that it has no original flavour left. Like bubblegum that people have just kept chewing, houses like that end up stale and tough. In contrast Katharine’s Place is still dripping with history, presence and creative possibilities.

My bedroom overlooks the garden. One wall is nothing but windows, and I can gaze out at the heritage-listed bougainvillea and pine trees. While there are houses only metres away, the centre still manages to feel isolated and secluded (but in a good, private way). I didn’t get to start writing until 2:30, but I managed to get over 2000 words written in 3 hours, which indicates how brilliant this place is for getting you writing. It helps that I’m being paid to do it as well; the whole “I need to prove that choosing me was the right choice” thing is a great motivator.

And the most exciting part? Seeing a bunny rabbit hopping around outside my window! Oh, and having a magpie hop onto my knee to try to convince me to share my lunch with him.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 2:46 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.