Annamakerrig Awaits

I'll be off writing for a whole week, undisturbed (sans hub, sans kids, sans everything - bar the sense), at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for Artists and Writers.

Tyrone Guthrie, playwright, was a rare spirit. He gifted his estate, deep in the drumlins of Co. Monaghan, to the Irish state upon his death in 1971, as a place to be developed for giving artists a space to work in.

I've already received a couple of bursary residencies to this magical place, last year (one lot from Dundalk Town Council, another from the centre itself), and by the Goddess did I make the most of those three weeks.

This coming week is my last gifted week there, making the most of Tyrone Guthrie's far-sighted hospitality, which is continued through the friendly staff who mind the place on his behalf, for us writers and artists: Guests of the Nation, indeed!

Thanks TG.

Teaching and Writing - do they mix?

I've been super-duper busy since the beginning of September - the observant among you can't have failed to notice the dearth of posts here. Why? Well, I got hours teaching for Navan VEC, as well as getting my own Saturday Creative Writing classes back up and running again (in a lovely new venue, DKIT).

So something had to give; the writing. And there's the rub. If I don't write, I don't have material to work on or send out. If I don't write, I don't develop all the ideas I have percolating away. If I don't write, I start to feel a little bit nuts.

I have just been coming back to the idea of writing this last few days - that must mean that I'm getting used to the teaching - thank goodness. And I still have one unused week from my residential bursary coming up: on the mid-term break. I should feel a little guilty about going off to write for a week at Annaghmakerrig and abandoning my husband to the six mini-monsters (okay, kids), but the truth is, I don't have time to feel guilty about it.

In that magical place I'll have the space to think, walk, eat, write and fool around with words, but more importantly I'll have the space to get three mini-projects nailed that have been rocketing around my brain for the last three weeks. The best thing about having to drive to Navan from Dundalk is the head space it allows for me to think. No time wasted, eh?

I can't bloody wait!

Where I am this week