The forth and final week of the Paris writing retreat.
I called this a writing retreat but I haven’t talked much about writing. I actually focussed a lot on researching for my next series which will be a portal fantasy focussing on the art world now and then. I’ve made note of some famous people in history, including artists, and also of famous works that I might feature in the books. It will be some time before I have a chance to dig into this project but I’m slowly putting together the parts.
Most days I wrote for several hours in the afternoon after visiting museums in the morning. I discovered that several groups back in Toronto that I knew had early morning writing zoom sessions landed at a better time for me in Paris. Where back home the meetings were at 7:00 a.m., the local time was now 1:00 p.m., so I was able to join and focus on writing for a couple of hours and chat a bit on writing related subjects as well. Having access to this kind of group has really helped me to show up and write regularly, which is essential if you ever want to make any kind of progress, especially with a novel, which is such a huge task. I think while I am slow, this kind of regular meet up helped me to stay on track over a very long period of time.
One of my favourite museum finds this visit was the Musée de Cluny, which features a collection of medieval art as well as some archelogical ruins from Roman Times. You may know of the Unicorn Tapestries which are on display there.
We had a great month in Paris. We probably went to a museum almost every day or so. We are now saturated in art and history, well fed and wined and have walked all over the green earth. I do miss my own bed, but Paris will always have a special place in my heart now that I know her more intimately.
