Prologue: Up in the Air
This series was originally published on Substack in May, 2026.
With travel time, my 28 day retreat is a little longer, thanks to the 10,000 miles between Brisbane, Australia and Paris, France…
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m obsessed with Paris. I can’t really explain why. Perhaps past lives are a thing because for some reason I always thought there was something for me in Paris, even though I was born a long, long way away. At least Ancestry has confirmed that I have a teeny tiny 2% of Breton DNA. That’s a win and might explain my love of crepes (but then doesn’t everyone love crepes?)
So why Paris? It could be the art. I’ve been obsessed with French art since I found a print of one of Monet’s waterlilies in a newspaper when I was 8. I recognised it from the fold out, colour panel in my World Book Encyclopedia. I was hooked.
So in 1994, heart sore and confused, I set off on my first trip to Paris to find a path forward following the death of my first love. We had been planning a trip together but then it was just me…
Eleven years later I wrote a 72,000 word memoir and I still don’t understand what happened or why. All I know is that writing helped me survive. But still, why set it in Paris? I could have written a memoir set in my home town but that seemed too awful to contemplate.
I visited Paris twice in 1998 with my husband, Michael, a very patient and understanding man who had never shown any interest in traveling until he met me. Apparently when we met, he found me intriguing. That’s one word for it!
We had a $2000 wedding and spent $30,000 on four months in Europe for our honeymoon. I couldn’t wait to drag him around Paris and show him why I love this place so much but the tough thing about Paris is she’ a little like a spoilt lover who is gorgeous and makes you fall in love but then is so very difficult! Back when we had no internet we had to learn the hard way—by making idiots of ourselves over and over to learn how to function in a new place.
Now English is widely spoken in Paris but in 1998 my terrible French was all we had to get us housed and fed. Although I had been learning French for a few years, it was hard to make myself understood with my terrible Aussie accent. Michael learnt a few important phrases; Une baguette s’il vous plait, deux croissant s’il vous plait, and sans pieds, s’il vous plait (crucial for buying a chicken to roast at the boucherie!)
We muddled through. April 1998 in Paris was as lovely as we had been promised by all those old songs, but on our return a month in Italy, Paris in June was a different bag of fish. We had to leave early because the air quality was so bad. It was a very hot summer and so smokey.
In 2006 we came as a family and met up with friends. We all camped in a motorhome at Camping de Paris in the Bois de Boulogne and rampaged all over the city. Is there anything better than showing a city you love to people you love?
Then in 2012 I organised a trip with a group of friends. I had never written fiction before but during this trip I started writing a story about (surprise, surprise) a group of friends visiting Paris. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was writing Magical Realism—the setting is the real world but with magical elements, in this case, time travel.
The house we stayed in had a swimming pool in the basement (yes!) and beside it was a small wooden door. Now the pool equipment was no doubt housed behind that little door but in my story, it became a time portal through which my characters could travel back to a time when they believed they were happier, before everything went bad. The trick was you had to have been to Paris before and you could only travel on your existing timeline.
Even time travel needs some constraints to make it believable.
That story was published as Hotel Deja vu in 2018. It’s a somewhat mad tale about women who attempt to change their lives and save their loved ones by going back in time and fixing things… but find that it rarely changes the outcome. After years of working in design and commercial art, I was adamant that I would never write to market, that I would write only what I wanted to write— so I did. I might have sold a few more copies if I’d popped in a sex scene or three.
Around the same time I came across the work of Dr Eric Maisel, author, coach and retired family therapist. He was a guest on a podcast and began talking about his writing retreat in Paris. Of course I wanted to go. That the retreat was due to start on my birthday felt like the signiest sign that ever signed!
The universe wanted me to go.
The bank account had other opinions.
To be fair, we had just been to L.A. and Vegas and skiing in the mountains for Michael’s 50th birthday so it was a long shot. I put it out into the universe and said, “If I sell 200 copies of Hotel déjà vu this month I’ll go to Paris and join the retreat.”
I sold around 100 copies. I didn’t actually do any marketing and didn’t even mention my desire to go to Paris to my husband. Even if I’d sold 200 copies it wouldn’t even have covered the cost of the retreat. Plane tickets don’t grow on trees, ya know!
So I didn’t go. I hadn’t earnt it! I’d put it out to the universe and hadn’t sold enough books so it wasn’t meant to be. (I also didn’t do any marketing so it was no surprise. I didn’t deserve it either.)
Flash forward a few years later and I discovered Maisel’s little book A Writers Paris. This was 2021—peak lockdown era. I spent my long days writing. I was doing the work (earning future rewards!) but I couldn’t even visit my parents across the border, let alone jump on a flight to Paris. Maisel’s little book felt like a lifeline, if you’ll allow me to be dramatic.
No doubt drawing on his retreat expertise, the slim guide book (of sorts) describes the delights of a writing spell in Paris. It’s directed mostly at residents of the USA for whom it is far easier and cheaper to hop over to Paris, with short flights and a strong dollar. Coming from Australia to Paris means an expensive 24-hour flight.
It doesn’t stop us from going though! I’ve heard so many Aussie accents just wandering around the city for the past day.
Thrilled to finally have the time and resources to travel, we came to Paris in 2024 and twice in 2025. This time Michael felt it too. Especially when we met up with friends and showed them the delights of the city of light!
This trip was a little unexpected. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m supposed to be walking the Camino Frances right now or doing yoga in Bali… As the saying goes, if you want to make the gods laugh, make plans!
When I was packing for this trip I was perusing my bookshelves and spotted Maisel’s book. I’d forgotten I had it and decided it would be perfect reading for the trip. I finished it on the plane. There was still a part of me that felt that I haven’t earnt this trip but when Maisel described all the ways people don’t write and engage in all other kinds of self-sabotage to avoid writing, I realised I have bloody earnt it! Maybe not in book sales—yet—but you better believe I’ve put in the hours at this keyboard.
I may have “put it out into the universe” nearly 10 years ago but maybe the universe takes a lot longer to get around to our dreams when we feel like we don’t deserve them.
