For a little while now I have not been able to work on my novel. Yes, I've had the occasional epiphanies at 2:00 in the morning where the lifeblood of the story flowed through me, but then...nothing.
Of course I am aware that this happens to other writers, but it has left me a bit frustrated because I had put a deadline of this fall to complete the novel.
"Why, why?" I fumed, and then a week ago I was talking to a friend about Cuba, a random conversation as I had never intended to go there. But the thought of Cuba, its ancient cars, its color and music, its vibrancy and checkered past, stayed with me so much that I finally said OK! And so I delved into her history a little. My thought was to maybe escape from a Canadian winter (generally a good idea), and hit the beaches round about the time that winter never ends, say February.
So it was to my great surprise that during my investigations I learned that my Poet had traveled there in 1930 after a sojourn in New York which led to his famous work, A Poet in New York, a scathing denunciation of that city, its treatment of African Americans, and what he viewed to be its enslavement to capitalism.
In fact, Lorca spent the happiest months of his life in Cuba, and wrote to his father, "If I am lost you will find me in...Cuba." Much of what he absorbed there was taken back to Madrid and incorporated into his later works. He. left his imprint there and is remembered with great fondness.
And so knowing that, I am following him there, and plan to leave soon.
Of course I am aware that this happens to other writers, but it has left me a bit frustrated because I had put a deadline of this fall to complete the novel.
"Why, why?" I fumed, and then a week ago I was talking to a friend about Cuba, a random conversation as I had never intended to go there. But the thought of Cuba, its ancient cars, its color and music, its vibrancy and checkered past, stayed with me so much that I finally said OK! And so I delved into her history a little. My thought was to maybe escape from a Canadian winter (generally a good idea), and hit the beaches round about the time that winter never ends, say February.
So it was to my great surprise that during my investigations I learned that my Poet had traveled there in 1930 after a sojourn in New York which led to his famous work, A Poet in New York, a scathing denunciation of that city, its treatment of African Americans, and what he viewed to be its enslavement to capitalism.
In fact, Lorca spent the happiest months of his life in Cuba, and wrote to his father, "If I am lost you will find me in...Cuba." Much of what he absorbed there was taken back to Madrid and incorporated into his later works. He. left his imprint there and is remembered with great fondness.
And so knowing that, I am following him there, and plan to leave soon.