November was Nuts

 

November was nuts...good nuts like the hot chestnuts sold in paper cones on Geneva street corners. They warm hands and tummies.

FlashNano2023, is over, leaving a hole the same way when a friend goes away. Each day's eagerly-awaited prompt to stimulate a flash fiction piece was a stimulant.

I missed about five prompts because November was overly full. There are 563 writers that participate and I'm sure their lives are as crazy as mine.

November started with a trip from France to Geneva after greeting our dog sitter. The dog is staying in France. It's an eight hour drive.

The Geneva Writers Group three-day conference was not only full of inspiring workshops, but it was a chance to meet up with writer friends from the last three decades.

Especially wonderful was the hour I didn't attend a workshop spending the time with the GWG founder and a young writer whom I watched advance in her craft. Two women from different generations whom I respect not just for their writing but for whom they are as people.

Then it was off to Portugal for an aviation conference for my husband's work. The hotel suite offered total luxury, the food satisfying for gourmet palates. The hotel itself was full of history of spies, royalty and writers. 

Back in Geneva, we immediately returned to France to pick up one dog and then back to Geneva to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends, a treat when one lives in a country that doesn't celebrate it.

 

We spent the rest of the month in the Geneva countryside flat we love among the scenery that refreshes our spirits. We saw a very few select friends, because we'd been cramming our writing between other obligations. 

There was the tiny village Christmas market with its chalet filled with handmade crafts, the smells of melting cheese of fondue and raclette and pumpkin soup in a huge caldron.

We needed to be back in France to say goodbye to Canadian friends heading back to Toronto.

Now it is quiet as we await the arrival of my daughter for the holidays. The calm will allow us uninterrupted time with our laptops and projects, to be described as "Priceless."

The next trip to Geneva after Christmas will be for the winter where our writing projects will have precedence. We will do our sacrosanct Tuesday morning free writes which produces flash fiction too.

None of the above is a complaint. I do hope next year when it is FlashNano2024, other things in our lives will not back up on each other. Still, I'm grateful for being able to participate because it always reminds me of why I am a writer. 

Thank you Nancy Stohlman for FlashNano2023.