LOCALadk Magazine

Fall 2018 LOCALadk Magazine 61 LOCALadk produced a couple of exquisite poems with lines that men- tioned geese and sunlight. Magical. The LaBastille Writing Residency was for me like being in an Adirondack fair y tale, one with a happy ending. We lived in a castle with a giant fireplace, porches ever y- where, and rooms so large we could have invited guests to a ball. Ever y morning I jumped out of my high bed made of twigs and branches and ran outside to a world filled with as many colors as a box of crayons. I'd glide along the quiet wa- ters of Twitchell Lake in a kayak or explore a trail to a remote pond then come back to the lodge and sit and write for hours and hours. It was truly a writer's dream. During those two enchanted weeks at Twitchell Lake I re- vised one short stor y, wrote a new one, and did a complete overhaul on a Young Adult novel that I've been working on for years. The formal dining room had a wooden table that was almost as long as a bowling alley and I used that length to lay out a pattern of 3x5 cards, each card representing one of the 32 chapters in my book. I rated the intensity of each chapter on a scale of one to 10 and placed the higher numbers at the top of the table. I added colored cards for each character and put them in the chapters where they ap- peared. With that long visual aid I could see which chapters didn't have enough tension and which characters needed to show up more often. Though we didn't have the distraction of our 9-to-5 jobs we did have one deadline. On the weekend in the middle of the residency we all participated in a reading open to the residents of Twitchell Lake and anyone else who wanted to come. Nathalie asked us all to read something from our new work, and that fired up our creativity. In the evenings before the reading we sat together in front of the fireplace and tried out our fresh writing, asking for comments. I loved those dis- cussions and found them as valuable as the solo writing time. I'm an active person and discovered that I could go for a hike or a run in the morning, write for most of the day, and still have time to go for a sunset paddle on Twitchell Lake before dinner. After I left the dock I'd paddle past the last of the summer camps to a secluded bay where beaver had a lodge. At dusk they swam around their water y territor y, their heads poking above the water and their tails whacking the surface if I got too close. Next, I'd paddle past a dark stretch of woods to the land where Anne LaBastille found such peace. The property is now part of the Forest Preser ve and her cabin was disman- tled one cold winter and re-assembled at the Adirondack Experience in Blue Mountain Lake. I'd glide past the dock that marks the place where her home once stood and nod my head in an imaginar y greeting. I was often close to euphoria, totally delighted to have received the gift of two weeks on an Adirondack lake with five kindred spirits. When darkness edged out the sunset I'd turn around, head- ing back toward the bright lights of our lodge. I knew Nath- alie would be inside making dinner while Noah set the table and Caitlin leaned against the counter to chat. Soon our little writing community would sit down for a meal, talk about our day, and laugh together while we ate a hearty home-cooked supper. In a few days we would scatter, back to our regular lives, fast Internet, and contact with the rest of humanity. But as I brought my kayak up to the dock, the plastic bow knocking against the wood, the outside world was far away.

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