I’m midway through my retreat, and midway through the first draft, and much as it feels like I’m wading through concrete, I’m on course to have a 30,000 word novella in the bag before I fly to NYC. That’s my aim. There was no way I could complete a first run at a novel in 30 days, but a treatment for a novel that will give me and my agent and pretty good idea if this idea has legs, that I can do.

Kimberley mentioned in passing yesterday, while talking about In Defence Of… , how the struggle makes her think she can’t do it. I was happy to correct her (“that’s just called writing” 😂). Here at First Draft front line, I’ve had all weathers; from concrete to crystalline flight. Every day is the same. And this midpoint of the second act is what sorts the sheep from the goats, reveals the chops a writer has or needs to develop. Gone is the exciting set up, that thrilling first act. Not yet in sight is the avalanche tumble toward the end, the relief of act three. Act two is the slog for writer and character alike. It’s when everything goes wrong, when our hero finds themselves further from their desire than they were when we met them. Act two is death. And boy, does it feel that way.

If you missed our conversation, here it is:

And can I recommend that you sign up for Kimberly’s memoir class, Writing The Unfixed Life? Too late. I’ve already done it. It’s a four week course designed to help you move beyond the mind’s grip and allow prose to rise from within, the kind of truth the body carries long before the brain finds words for it.

Every life holds stories that refuse tidy arcs or endings—illness, loss, identity shifts, and everyday uncertainties that shape us. Writing the Unfixed Life is for writers sitting (or wrestling!) with those stories.

I’m going to go further. I’m going to recommend you pre order her luminous memoir, Unfixed: A Memoir of Family, Mystery, and the Currents That Carry You Home

It’s fantastic and threaded with a magic that keeps on going (see the end of our conversation when we consider the possibility that Charlie is still alive… )

Meanwhile, I went for a flea market jaunt to Port Grimaud today. Corner table on a square? ✅. Croissant dipped in café crème? ✅. Ancient woman in swirling patterns of fire plus soft hat at jaunty angle? ✅✅✅ The literal translation of flamboyant is flaming wavy and she had it in Gallic spades.

As you were,

Eleanor

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