Once a month I meet with my writing group. One of our exercises today was to write a short piece on our perfect scenario, as though it is accomplished, not still a dream for the future. This is my piece:At last, I don't work to earn money. I write and the writing works for me. It affords me a lifestyle of writing and reading, of words and books, and our little stone cottage in France.
It started with a writing group and my husband agreeing to learn French with me. With each pronunciation of this foreign tongue a blue wooden door creaked open and through that door I glimpsed my writing desk at the window, our kitchen with the slate floor, and the patio doors opened out on to the terrace. I glimpsed my husband bringing me tea, cup after cup, while I write.
I write at my desk, at the kitchen table or on the patio in the shade of the vines. I glance up from my writing and see the countryside unfold to the village steeple. I didn't then consider my deadlines and the moments of drought that would threaten to overwhelm me. But I remember Ernest Hemingway's advice, "Write until you find the first true sentence."
And so I do, I write.
