What is something every writer craves, besides an active imagination?
The answer is time. To be more specific: UNINTERRUPTED TIME.
Why?
So, you could write and possibly finish that novel you have been working on for a year. Or has it been two or three years? Since the pandemic started, it feels more like one big giant nightmare of when-will-this-ever-be-over kind of day/month/year. Sad, but true.
What if I told you that I know where there is a private island?
A place where you could disappear to and write for almost two weeks straight? Uninterrupted. Write, read, and sleep whenever you want. A rustic cabin on a remote island covered in trees, with no wifi and no electricity (other than enough solar power to keep your laptop running), and hopefully, no mosquitos, mice, or snakes. A place where there are no piles of laundry waiting, no family members nagging about when you will feed them, and no dogs to be walked in minus 32 degrees Celsius weather. Oh, and you won’t have to go to your daily paying job either. All you have to do is scribble words on paper or type them into your laptop. Or paint. Or make music. Or create any art you want.
Now I have your attention, don’t I? I bet you would be interested in going there, wouldn’t you?
There are only two things you need to do before you can go:
- Apply to the Halls Island Artist Residency.
- Wait for a Selection Committee to choose your application from the pile.
Sounds easy enough, right?
The application process for the Halls Island Artist Residency took me ten days to complete. It was an easy three-step process:
- Submit your application fee. $10.
- Complete the application form online and submit it before the deadline (January 15, 2022).
- Email all requested supporting material.
The main application was only six pages long, which included some straightforward questions like your name and address, plus hard questions about why you want to go to this island, and why now. They asked for specific details. Step three was the time-consuming part of searching, collecting, and creating all the requested supporting material, such as:
- A professional curriculum vitae/resume (maximum two pages)
- A work plan for your time at the residency (maximum two pages)
- A letter of reference from a mentor or colleague
- A proposal for a community engagement project (maximum one page)
- A sampling of your work (writing samples, photos of your art, CD of your music; whatever suits your art discipline).
My biggest issue was that I didn’t have a literary resume. I have a business resume, but that is for the other part of my life. Building my writing resume would take some time. I wasn’t sure what kind of information to include and what to leave out. I wondered what the Selection Committee would want to see. So, I stepped into their shoes and imagined being on the committee. I thought about what I would like to know if I chose the participants for this year. What would make a good candidate?
I researched and watched an impressive YouTube video presentation on the artists selected for last year’s artist residency. Here is the link:
2021 Escape to Halls Island, third in the 6-Minute Escape series.
Unfortunately, I realized I couldn’t hold a candle to the ones there before: the published novelists, the clever poets, the gifted musicians, or the talented painters. So, I needed to sell myself on paper the best way I knew how, and create the possibility of making the writer’s dream a reality.
Fingers crossed, they are not evaluating my resume or work plan to determine my hierarchy in the writing world or whether I am a celebrity novelist or not. Instead, they might understand who I am and how this residency might make a big difference in my writing life.
The idea behind the artist residency is to experience the wild and wonderful creative activity in your brain when you are uninterrupted for almost two weeks. My passion for the writing project I will be working on at the residency should be evident in my application. I believe wholeheartedly in it, and I know I will finish the work with or without visiting the island, but the novel would be more realistic and believable if I had the opportunity to work on it there. So, I will be patient and wait it out.
If the opportunity is not available to me, I will know that it wasn’t because of the application or what they know about me; it’s because of the fierce competition. By now, I’m aware of how much rejection is part of a writer’s life, I will hold my head high, and I will try again. Quitting is not an option. And, to double or triple my chances, I will apply to a couple of more residency options, as well, so I will always have something else to focus on instead of waiting for the announcement from the Halls Island Selection Committee.
Waiting is hard. Ack.
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