Back to the Beginning

Let's go back to the beginning of this idea: I was at the table, having realised my renovation project, and it was on the market again. But it didn't quite go to plan. I was ready for a great success, a fantastic sale, lots of profit, but that wasn't quite the way it happened. The sale went through on the 5th of February, a long time later than expected, and in the meantime I had lots of time to think.

Sometimes when I get an idea - and I get lots of them - say for a new business, or a project, I'm not completely clear whether it's something I'll actually do, or if it's something I'll write about. Or if it's something I'll write about to explore the idea fully and see if it's something I really want to do.

The time waiting for the renovation project to sell was a time of soul-searching. Why, when I'm good at what I do, does it not turn out to be the great success it could be? I asked myself this question and came up with an unexpected answer: Because it's not what you're supposed to be doing. What you need to do is write.

I've always known it, and never fully acknowledged it to myself.

So I made a deal with my unconscious mind and with the Universe. If my purpose, what I absolutely need to be doing is to write, then that's what I'll do, one to two hours every day - in return, I'd like the rest of my life taken care of, for everything to work, while I focus on the writing.

And it has happened. The renovation project sold, well enough to be called a success. My business (www.homestyle.co.nz) is running brilliantly, easily, lots of work and lots of income; the new business, professional interviewing (www.jennifermanson.co.nz) is taking off, and wonderfully inspiring and fun; there is money to start renovating my own home; my relationships are happy and I am planning a road trip with my husband in a couple of weeks.

And the Writers' Hotel? For now, it is the current writing project: "The Old Occidental Writers' Hotel" now at 54,148 words of first draft.

Will it become a reality also? Watch this space.

What do I say?

I asked my good friend Peter Barker, The Property Hunter, www.thepropertyhunters.co.nz to work his magic and find out who owns the building I am looking at. He came back with a company name and a list of directors. Fantastic! Next step easily managed. But now what do I say? Do I go straight in with this partly baked idea, or is there a better way to approach it?

Next step: a web search on the directors to get a feel for who they are, and a chat to an architect I am talking to tomorrow about something else.

One step at a time . . . The next step always becomes clear.

The building

The concept of The Writers' Hotel is very clear in my mind, but what about an actual physical location? I mentioned the idea to a friend and she made a throwaway joke about buying a historic building in the city. I didn't take much notice, but a couple of days later I found myself parked just down the road. "That's interesting" I thought.

The building is empty and has been mildly vandalised. Still I left it in the back of my mind until a couple of days later again I found myself driving past it. It's not a route I take very often, so the coincidence attracted my attention. I stopped outside and got out of the car.

There is a cobbled courtyard facing the street and steps up to the front door. Weeds grow through the cobbles. The facade is beautiful, verandas on both floors with antique cast iron balustrades - just what you want for a traditional Writers' Hotel.

The site is near the corner of a green square so that the diagonal view is pleasant. It's not the best street, not the worst. I found myself thinking it wouldn't be ideal sitting out in the courtyard at night - there are lots of bars and nightclubs just a block away.

3D vision

Then I had a strange experience, like the space around me had shifted. Instead of standing in an open courtyard on the street, I felt myself inside a glass atrium rising the full two storeys from the street front and completely enclosing the courtyard and facade. I could hear echoes of a busy cafe to my left, and saw a writing space with sofas, chairs and desks to my right. Inside the atrium, the life of the street became something to watch, benign. I imagined standing on the verandas looking out into the atrium, an intriguing ambiguous space, outside and inside at the same time.

The feeling of this imagined space stayed with me. Perhaps it's time to find out who owns this building and have a talk.

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!