Writers Competition

On our first afternoon in Tuscany, a thunderstorm moves in to welcome us. Cornelia’s home sits high above the landscape below – a landscape formed of smaller rolling hills which, I later learn, trap the light in pockets of gold as the sun goes down. In the far distance, other high peaks rise up. I watch them, misty and blue, in an ever-changing spectacle as the thunderstorm moves across them. Occasionally, forked white lightning strikes. 

The apartment I will be staying in is called ‘Cielo’, which means ‘Sky’. Painted stars are scattered across its walls and it’s sparsely but lovingly decorated – a big wooden wardrobe and a big wooden desk, a shelf well-stocked with diverse and interesting books, a naturally-dyed tablecloth patterned with sunflowers, the colourful sculpture of a tiny man who sits, dangling his legs, atop a stack of books by the door – and small ceramic dragons. This feels fitting, given the story which helped me get here. Both the space and beauty are good for my imagination.

Staying here is like stepping into another world, one of fantasy and fairy tale. The world drops away before me only metres from my own front door. Huge black bees with iridescent blue wings visit the sweet-smelling, yellow flowers currently framing the view. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to learn that they had flown from the pages of a book. I haven’t come expecting to write much. I arrive feeling tired and dry. I look at the hills a lot. I read a children’s adventure story. I think. Some important things about myself come back to my attention. I’m not naturally someone who arrives ready to go and eager to explore. I’m slower, more tentative; I experience the world by soaking it in rather than diving in head-first. I don’t always talk much but I am good at leaving space. I notice that these things can be disadvantages but that they can also be gifts. I am grateful for a more adventurous companion who has already mapped out the town by the time I’m ready to venture in. 

I start to write a little. My characters, Phil and Mariposa, will be going on an adventure together this week. ‘Mariposa’ is Spanish for ‘butterfly’. The whole time we are here, a butterfly with incredible, veined, stained-glass wings flits about the place. I’m excited about my story idea. Everyone else seems excited by it too. During the week, I eat one of the best pastries I’ve ever had in my life and Cornelia arranges for us to do a natural-dyeing workshop. It feels like performing alchemy with silk and flowers. 

I hit a wall with my story. It’s frustratingly familiar. It’s the same wall which has stopped me writing other stories. It’s more than just sudden boredom, it’s a visceral feeling of disgust. Cornelia talks about stories as if they are alive, waiting to be discovered and stubborn about the direction they want to go in. Hitting this wall feels like watching my story die in my hands. 

Cornelia says that the wall probably means I am not asking interesting enough questions of my characters or my story, that I’m not taking them seriously enough and I’m keeping things too shallow. Why is Phil blind? How does he feel about it? How does Mariposa treat the servants? Is she kind or cruel? Cornelia talks about finding the thread of a story, the thing which runs the whole way through, and how she was inspired to write The Thief Lord – which is, incidentally, a favourite of mine. She says that she wanted to write a story about the way children think about being grown-ups, and grown-ups think about being children. This is the thread around which the book was built. She’s passionate about it. A light goes on in the back of my head. I need to be passionate enough about the thread for it to carry me through the story. 

I am trying to write a story about a princess so beautiful that she gets whatever she wants but the things which strike a deep chord with me are grief and fear and loneliness and feeling like you’re on the outside – and hope, too. This is a tricky realisation to have because, aside from hope, I have never wanted to write stories about these things. However, they are, I realise, the themes of the short story I wrote for the competition. And they are the themes of the poetry collection I have been working on for the last few years. I know I will have to go home and think about this. 

Cornelia challenges us on whether or not we really want to be writers. She says she is a writer because words are the one thing she has infinite patience for. I worry that I do not have infinite patience for anything – but I do know that I am happy when I write. By the time I go home, I have also fallen in love with the life of a writer. A few months ago I was disappointed that I hadn’t managed to find a 9-5 office job after graduating; now, I am grateful for the unexpected journey. 

Other things I am taking home with me: confidence in my ability to write something good and in my instincts as a writer, permission to let stories percolate for a while (Cornelia starts a notebook for every story she writes and says that not all of them are filled immediately, if at all), and the deep need to wrestle with the ways in which my faith and my creativity interact. Over the coming weeks, I will read Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark about Christianity, beauty, and art, and get involved with a creative group at my church. The first thing I do when I get home, though, is to make my work-space more beautiful. Later, I put a story on to percolate. I grow more confident in my calling. I return to my poetry collection with fresh eyes. I give the seeds time to bear fruit.