Seven Persons Cottage On Lake Joseph Was Model For Present Short Story Series, The Preacher Has Gone Fishing, Currie's Antiques On Facebook

LOSING OUR PASSION MAKES RE-DISCOVERING THEM AGAIN, A LITTLE LIKE A RE-BIRTH OF YOUTH

WRITER'S LAMENT - "PLEASE INSPIRE ME, FOR GOD'S SAKE"

     Chevy Chase, in the character of Andrew Farmer, in the movie "Funny Farm," moves to rural United States, to write a best selling novel. From city sports writer, for a major publication, to novelist, the Rockwellian country setting, with all its pleasant nostalgia, and natural attributes, doesn't inspire his writing interests. He turns out a crappy manuscript. It's his wife who eventually writes a publishable children's book, inspired by a stuffed squirrel purchased at a local Rosebud antique dealer. The squirrel in the story is named after her husband, "Andy." Her success, his failure. It works out in the end but not without a close-up glimpse about what it must be like being a writer, staring at the typewriter keyboard, with no successful output. I have suffered bouts of block numerous times in the past, but fortunately, I can pretty much write on command, and this comes from having worked int the media for so long. As far as writing fiction, this is where I have been a lot like Andy Farmer. This has just recently changed for the better, as I have been playing around with short story writing again, after a long, long hiatus.
     It feels pretty good to get back in the groove, and if you're a writer, artist, musician, or artisan, you know what I mean. Being uninspired sucks big time.
     Over the past few blogs, I've been writing about my own rather startling re-generation, you might say, as a writer-kind. I never really thought too much about the rut I had dug for myself, because I didn't believe it to be either too deep, or too cumbersome to jump out whenever I so desired. I only really figured this out, when I started to mire down, in the whole creative enterprise thing, particularly because I was using it to write about local politics and related community woes; and honestly, it started to become pretty obvious, the rut was getting deeper by the week. I couldn't see the horizon any more, and the only way out, was to back-track, and figure out why I was losing inspiration, where there had always been an unlimited fountain of resource. A writer who can't write is, in this case, an antique dealer. Seeing as I've been happily working in both professions, since the late 1970's, it was a little disturbing, to find myself losing interest in what had always been such a source of pride. I even got a little push of adrenilin, when I'd think about how many years I have been working as a writer, and how many colleagues I've passed, sticking with the pen. I'm either durable or too stupid to quit. I don't know, but what I appreciate more than anything else, is that I feel better overall, when I'm working on some writing project. It's my bottom line.
     The reason I re-published the story about my seasonal stay at "Seven Persons' Cottage," on Lake Joseph, yesterday, was that it is the place I most often think about, whenever I get this creepy feeling about being bogged-down, and being uninspired. It was the place where I made a solemn promise to myself, that I would never abandon creative enterprise, and would rescue it at all cost, whenever, and however, it became endangered by neglect. This was the fascinating little english manor house, re-built as a scale model of the original full sized dwelling, complete with little harbor and dock for a down-sized boat. It had a large, bowed front window, with built-in seat, and it's aura of largeness, was remarkably preserved, despite the fact everything was down-sized, even the gargoyles carved into the miniature fireplace mantle. It was incredible, and I felt like Gulliver the whole time I lived there, that summer and fall of 1979. Did I mention, at five foot seven inches tall, I had to bend over to get inside. Once inside, it was amazing how much room there was, so it wasn't the case I worried about hitting my head on the ceiling.
     I actually met the builder of the small-sized English cottage, as he resided in the cottage further along the lakeshore; the abutting property in fact. I remember visiting with him and having the chance to view his amazing collection of carved pipes; ones with faces carved onto the bowls. He had built the little cottage I was living in, as a sort of recreation, but it was obvious to me, like the story of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," that "Seven Persons' Cottage," was much more than just a recreational building project. I certainly felt it was enchanted, and there wasn't one moment spent in that cottage, at least while awake, that I wasn't profoundly aware, I was feeling an excessive need to create something as well. So I did. I'd get home from writing all day, at the newspaper, which then was "The Beacon," in MacTier, and I'd write until the wee hours of the morning. Yes, I was fueled by the ambience of the little structure, and the gnomes I was sure lived there as well, (I just didn't see them), and the occasional quart of wine that lubricated the process. I'd sit at the built-in, pull-down desk, just inside the front door, and illuminate an oil lamp, which was my main source of light, as personal preference; and I would fill a note book with short stories, all of them inspired by my deep affections for the tiny, beautiful little cottage, overflowing with spirited qualities beyond my, or any other simple explanation.
     I was so prolific in that enchanted cottage, I didn't want to leave. I basically had to be asked to vacate the cottage at the end of October. But it was with great reluctance, let me tell you, that I packed up all my gear, and headed for my parents' house in Bracebridge for the winter that year. I left with a bundle of full notebooks, and the idea, that these rough drafts would keep me in story ideas for years to come. Leaving Seven Persons Cottage, coincided with another change on the horizon. I was contributing even then, more and more to our sister publication, The Herald-Gazette, and it wouldn't be long before I was asked to take over editorial responsibilities. The build-up to what I desired most, was that it meant more news and feature writing, to fill a much larger paper, amongst others we also published, leaving a lot less time to write short stories, or even consider writing a long anticipated novel. I became consumed with news writing, and the whole non-fiction reality, because that's where my readers were on any given issue, whether the weekly or The Muskoka Sun, our summer season publication. During this period, I had to bring a lot of work home with me, and by time I finished-up work for the paper, and had a few pints at the press club, there wasn't much ambition to play around with short story writing. It was the reality of the day. I can't look back with regrets, because this period anchored me as a regional writer, and I've got the archives to prove it! It was the price to pay in order to get front page bylines, over a pretty wild decade of front-line journalism. I certainly can't fault those years for leading me in a different direction, but the problem came in the years following, when I still maintained writing for the local press, but on a freelance basis this time. I devoted so much time, in fact, that even our antique business suffered a slow down. I was writing local histories, sitting at my sales desk, when we were operating our Bracebridge antique shop. I worked this way from 1991  to 2000, roughly, for another decade, before I turned to other publications with a larger provincial audience. Still working then, in the field of non-fiction.
     In the past few weeks, I've been thinking back to where my relationship with fiction writing, was most compromised, and been delving back to that halcyon period, living and working from Seven Persons Cottage, where I would have remained until death, if they had allowed me to stay. Of course, everything else would have been lost, which would have been devastating in retrospect; so it's not like I'm unhappy that I changed my course at that junction, because I wouldn't be sitting in this music studio today, belonging to my sons, if I had indeed, retreated from the news business to write novels. It was while working in the news business that I met Suzanne, and reacquainted after having gone to school together many years previous. I guess it was God's will, in this way, that I had to change my way of looking at writing as a profession. It's not like I was compromised as a writer because of having to work in the local media; I got a lot of useful practice that half year, writing about everything and anything, and it was beneficial as a learning enterprise. I guess now, I've pretty much run the course of experience, to at least qualify as a journeyman writer, leaving me a little more opportunity to pursue creative writing, of which I was trained by some very competent professors. I find myself looking forward to writing short stories, and creative features, such as the one I've been penning for Suzanne's facebook page, that can be found by searching "Currie's Antiques." It's a great change, and far easier to write than what I have been working on for the past thirty odd years. I mean it! Some of them were "odd" years, especially when I think about some of the way-out-there projects I was working on to make a buck. I always despised when I was asked to write business promotions for special publications, and play nice with business people, who wanted Steinbeck quality reviews of their small enterprises. I did it to survive. That's it. I vowed one day, to have enough resources, to refuse such assignments. I quit because of it, in fact. It was one thing to write news copy day after day, but another thing entirely to be forced to write what often was pretty close to fiction, as it was, because many of the businesses weren't going to survive, no matter how well I represented them in print.
     Working from Seven Persons' Cottage was always a relaxing, stimulating exercise of self-improvement. I felt so incredibly comfortable in this wee cottage, that wrapped around me like a warm heirloom quilt. Looking out over the moonlit lake on an early fall evening, was about as enchanting as one could feel, without actually having a special seat at the great tea party, in Alice's Wonderland. I always, on those late night vigils, felt in company of other entities, but I would never have said they were of the haunting variety. Instead of being unsettled by the sensation of company, I found it a mysterious source of nutrition for story writing. I have always been very needy in this regard. I need my accommodations to inspire me, with whatever it possesses, inside, or the landscape on which it is nestled. I have lived in three residences in my life, that didn't inspire me whatsoever, when it came to writing. One was at cottage our family was renting on Alport Bay of Lake Muskoka, off Beaumont Drive in Bracebridge. The other, was at a house Suzanne and I rented on Quebec Street, known as the Marrin House, and the third was at our home on Golden Beach Road, near Bowyer's Beach. I simply couldn't find any significant environmental reason to write even a several verse poem. I had to write editorial copy, while living at Golden Beach, but it was like pulling teeth each and every time I had to sit down at my desk and create something readable for The Muskoka Sun. Nothing came easily in those places. They were all nice homes in which to reside, but I had no interest in writing in any of them. Outside of Seven Persons' Cottage, the only other place that has kept me interested in creative writing, has been our present modest bungalow, we call Birch Hollow. I was in the house, on the real estate tour, for no more than five minutes, before I knew it would be my choice for a new place of residence. Suzanne felt exactly the same. Part of this feeling, of course, came from the reality, the tiny ranch bungalow, more like a cottage, was directly across from a subdivision greenbelt known as The Bog. We put an offer in later that same afternoon, and it was a done-deal before eight o'clock that evening. Although we had some regrets during the great real estate melt-down of the early 1990's, we have never really felt any pang to be anywhere else.
     I know this to be true, because we had a chance about fifteen years ago, to buy a local farm we had both admired for years. The price was right, and all we had to do was list Birch Hollow and let the real estate agents make our dream come true. Shortly before we listed, I sat with the boys, Andrew and Robert, out on the front lawn, staring out over The Bog, and after only a few moments of watching the squirrels and birds, bobbing about, along the fringe of the wetland, I called to Suzanne, working in her garden, to inform her, that I no longer supported the idea of selling off our little slice of paradise; on speculation I would like living on a farm better. Maybe I would have, in the long term. I knew how difficult it was to find a place that I felt was a motivating force, when it came to writing, and the farmstead just didn't inspire me, at any time, on our several visits to view the property before placing an offer. Suzanne, God Bless her, knows how miserable I would be, if I didn't have writing as an always available outlet for my creative over-load. Birch Hollow had been good to all of us for those early years, when we had to deal with a lot of frustrations and anxiety over the state of the home and business economy. We both felt we owed the little house on the knoll some family loyalty, for having kept us safe and sound for those years of turmoil. What if we moved to the farm, and I found it impossible to write anything at all. It had happened before. I'm very tuned to the vibes, and it just seemed risky business, to take a chance on ending a career, all because of what may only have been a great expectation of a better life. In many ways, yes, it could have been an improvement in our lives, giving more room for the boys to roam the countryside. We made up for what Birch Hollow didn't have, by taking our boys on many Algonquin canoeing adventures. Didn't make up for all the shortfalls, perceived and otherwise, but it did infill somewhat the need to explore the hinterland.
     My recollections of what it was like, living at Seven Persons' cottage, on Lake Joseph, way back then, was the inspiration itself, for the present story on the "Currie's Antiques" facebook page, entitled "The Preacher Has Gone Fishing." The lodge is actually a liberal re-interpretation of the cottage, and the chambers occupied by the Preacher, a model of what I enjoyed as a livingroom in that lakeside retreat; and yes, there was a fishing creel hanging just inside the door, and several fishing rods, leaning up against the rock fireplace, should I have desired at any time, to drop a line into a most beautiful lake. The memory of this little bit of heaven on earth, has returned with full vigor, to inspire me once again, and of this, I am very grateful. It was a very transitional time in my life, as it was the first summer spent apart from my girlfriend, who had just informed me I was being cast-off for another chap who suited her life-interests more than the scruffy writer-kind, me! Seven Persons' Cottage gave me a lift, feeling better about being single; not thinking of myself as being so entirely alone in the world, and confused standing alone at that proverbial crossroads, we all arrive at, to test our experience in choice making. I left the embrace of that charming cottage, feeling as if my life had been re-animated, and my interest in creative writing, very much electrified with new possibility. Being able to recall those days now, with such clarity, is a treasured resource I shall utilize until the end of my writing days. If you want to read the 12 part series, which was inspired by this enchanted cottage, you can visit Curries Antiques, on facebook, and catch the first four mini-chapters including the preamble which have already been published. It will have a total of twelve chapters when finished in the next week. Always glad to have you visit.