In the beginning . . .

Where do these ideas come from?

I was sitting at the conservatory table of a realised dream: I had bought a house, renovated it and it was back on the market again - I had dreamed of doing this since I was 25 years old, and now my part was finished; it was up to the agent to do the rest.

So I took out my journal and asked myself the question: What next?

I don't know what I was expecting, but the answer was clear, immediate and a big surprise: Renovate a hotel.

Well, the renovations I can do - I can take a vision and make it real, but a hotel? That's a long term business, what about that? Again the answer came quickly: get together a team from the hotel industry and financiers to make the business work; I just need to oversee the renovations and hold the idea together.

The next day came the next refinement: make it a hotel for artists and writers; then a few days on: artists take up too much space. Lets call it The Writers' Hotel.

Being the Heart

Lots of things fall into line here, making perfect sense. Along with my business (staging homes for sale) I am a writer of sorts, with a regular column in The Press newspaper's home and lifestyle magazine, and with a novel currently under consideration with Penguin. I could feel the atmosphere around me, people writing in the rooms and in the cafe, books and typewriters and escritoires making up the decor - I can see and feel myself as the heart of this place!

NaNoWriMo

A few years ago I took up the NaNoWriMo challenge (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) and wrote a complete 50,000 word novel in the month of November - wouldn't it be fantastic if every year the hotel were given over entirely to people who were doing the same thing, writers from all over the world encouraging and inspiring each other as they rode the rollercoaster of the novel under pressure?

Ideas follow in a stream . . .

From here idea followed idea in an effortless stream. I'll keep you posted on progress.

And in the meantime, if the idea of a vacation to write, in a place where writing is in the air, in a beautiful city (Christchurch) in a beautiful country (New Zealand) appeals to you, let me know at jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.

Here's dreaming!