Up High: Cannes, France

Writing with the Seasons - August 2024

Welcome to ‘Writing with the Seasons,’ a collection of writing prompts, ideas and inspiration that follow the rhythms of the natural world. This year we've introduced "Up High," a series on walking and writing. For August, we walked up high in Cannes, France.

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Need a burst of morning creativity? We’re offering £5 taster workshops this August at Write & Shine! It’s part of our Summer Festival, a feast of creativity, with a delicious programme focusing on writing, food, memory and taste. (16-30 August, virtual).

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Sunrise: 5:53am
Location: Cannes, France
Elevation: 37.2m

The author Melissa Broder says she likes to use the coldest eye possible when she edits her books. There’s what we think the story is about, she says, and what it really is about. We have to step out of our own way to let the story come through, to see not just the truth but, in her words, “the bones truth.”

I have all sorts of tricks to distance myself from my writing so I can see it afresh. Broder changes the font in a chapter, then sends it to herself as a pdf. She reads it on her phone, the text now feeling like someone else’s. My habit is to print my work and read it in different lights: sat outdoors in a park, by a window on a train, a cafe with hot, good coffee. It helps to have a view to remind me that the possibilities of a story are vast.

I have all this in mind as we head to the Église Notre-Dame d'Espérance, up on a hill in the Suquet district of Cannes.