Writer in Exile

by Tricia Dower

I’m at a secret location giving my best impression of Margaret Laurence, minus the booze, cigarettes, lung cancer, and suicide. Actually, my four-day self-exile is not at all Laurence-like. It’s just that whenever I imagine being left alone to do nothing but write, my mental picture is of her: round-shouldered over a typewriter in a lakeside cottage, turning out brilliant prose with smoke wreathing her head, a glass of whiskey close at hand.

Anyway, I’ve gone off to a place where I can see water and boats and a small mountain with fog-tipped evergreens. I brought my camera so I could show you but forgot the thingamajig that transfers the image to my computer, so you’re stuck with a photo of my dead muse. If I’d brought a recorder, I could share the rhythmic barking of sea lions, but they’d probably drive you nuts. When I take out my hearing aids, the sea lions sound like one big dripping tap.

I’ve got a small kitchen with tea, cereal, milk, blueberries, grapes, melon, cauliflower, mushrooms, Cheez Whiz, bread, soup, dried prunes, and pretzels to keep me going. The brilliant prose is harder to come by. I’ve sequestered myself to finish Part One of my next book, which I’m optimistically calling a novel. I’ve given myself a real challenge with this story and I doubt I'm producing even a word a minute. Mind you, each agonizing word is a gem, even the articles. (Would “a” have more impact than “the” in this line, I ponder at length, avoiding the tough work lying ahead in the unwritten sentences.) Whenever I start a new project, it feels as if it’s harder to write than the last one. But is that true?

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Colin says, and, of course, he’s right. But what would I do, instead?

Image: Margaret (Peggy) Laurence in 1956