The Writer's Journey

Charlotte Wilton never was one to follow the expectations of others, especially when it came to life-changing decisions. On this early summer day, in a move that terrified her aging mother, she stepped into a foreign country—alone—and soon after found herself driving on the wrong side of the road—intentionally. It was, after all, England. What concerned her friends and coworkers—and what her mother didn’t know—was that she’d cashed in part of her retirement plan to afford this trip.

She dreamed of travelling the world and was tired of waiting. It was time to take charge of her own life.

“And I’m going to make the best of it,” Charlotte reminded herself as she turned down another country road with no idea if she was going the right direction. The best part of any trip was the journey, right? She had a vague sense that she might be heading northwest, and the little village of Chauncy Downs was located in that general direction.

Finally, she drove through a village, though the sign said it was Reedsy-upon-Avon. She continued to drive, passing thatched roof homes, ancient buildings made of a golden stone, and even a Tudor-style pub before leaving the—

“Hold up,” Charlotte said, and to my surprise, my main character slammed on the brakes of her rental car, then turned her head my direction.

My fingers paused over the keyboard. What? I’m the one writing this story. Where did these words come from?

Then I saw my thoughts appear on the screen as they surfaced in my mind, but my fingers weren’t typing. How is this possible?

“It’s possible,” Charlotte said while a car honked behind her, “because I ‘never was one to follow the expectations of others.’ Isn’t that how you started my story?”

“But—” I said aloud, aware my husband in the other room would think me crazy if he heard me talking to my laptop computer. He often said that when I’m deep into a story, I write as if in a trance, my mind in another world. He wasn’t wrong, but never had something like this happened to me before.

How am I showing up as a character in my own story? I thought, wondering if the bourbon cake we had at supper tonight contained far more bourbon than I realized.

There my thoughts are again! Why are they—

“Would you stop already?” Charlotte said, her bourbon-colored eyes trained on me.

Oh no. Maybe the bourbon is to blame...

She shook her head with humor, her russet curls moving as she did. “Now, I’m going to park this car and get out and see Reedsy-upon-Avon.”

And before I—the author of this story—could type anything different, Charlotte alighted from the rented Mini Cooper, thus beginning her English countryside vacation.

Up ahead she saw a charming tea shop. It was nearly eleven in the morning, and tea would be the perf—

“That’s not where I’m going first,” Charlotte mumbled so that only I—the author—heard her.

“But—” I said aloud again, then looked around my writing corner in my home’s mostly-empty spare bedroom.

“Do you need something?” my husband called from the living room, where he was watching a basketball game. A whistle sounded as a call was made.

“No, just thinking aloud!” I shut the spare bedroom door then returned to my laptop, “What’s going on?”

As if my character, Charlotte, could hear me.

“Of course I can,” she said as she walked along the sidewalk, past the row of quaint shops into a more residential area. “And I’m hijacking this story. I don’t want to spend my trip wandering through tearooms and bookshops. I didn’t cash in a chunk of my retirement for nothing. I have a plan.”

“What plan?” I’d envisioned Charlotte’s journey to be realizing her dream, visiting the Cotswolds in England with its fairytale cottages.

“I guess you’ll have to see,” Charlotte said with a wink.

Before I knew it, she veered off the sidewalk, following the cobblestone path to the ancient front door of one of the cottages. The curtainless windows were dark, one with spiderwebs stretched behind the glass.

Is this place abandoned? I wondered, then touched my fingers to the keys to write the next line.

But Charlotte took over the story again and opened the cottage door.

“Hello,” she called inside, and a male voice from the back said, “Miss Wilton?”

She ducked her head to avoid the lintel as she stepped inside. Only the dim daylight from the grimy windows lit the bare floorboards and plaster walls of the empty room.

A casually-dressed, fair-haired man in his thirties or early forties appeared in a doorway, clipboard in hand. “Nice to finally meet you. Wally Wilton.”

Wally Wilton? I thought. Why anyone would name their character—

Charlotte glared at me briefly, then turned back to the man, shaking his hand. “Please, call me Charlotte. We are, after all, distant cousins.”

They walked together across the scarred floorboards.

“This place is in need of care,” Wally said, “but structurally it’s in decent shape.”

He showed her the timber and stone fireplace which still held the ash and charred remnants of a recent fire, before walking with her into the other low-ceilinged rooms. Once the tour was complete, they ventured outside to the wild and weedy back garden, the small property enclosed by lichen-covered stone walls.

“Are you certain you want to take on the responsibility of this cottage?" he asked. "I’ve told you what’s required if you do.”

“I’m sure.”

Wally grinned. “Delightful. Then all that’s left is to make it official.” He handed her the clipboard. “Please sign the agreement on the first and third pages.”

“Wait, what are you agreeing to?” I asked Charlotte.

Wally didn’t seem to register my presence—and she flat out ignored me as she scribbled her name across the signature lines then returned the clipboard.

“You won’t regret it," he said. "I’ll stop by later with your copy of this. Oh, your keys.” He dug into his jeans pocket and removed a keyring with two skeleton keys dangling from it.

After he left, I asked Charlotte, “What’s going on?”

“I told you, you’ll see,” she said, her voice a little irritated as she did another walk-through of the cottage.

I decided it was time to exert some control over the story, so I typed: Charlotte viewed the outdated and dirty kitchen. It would require some work before she could fix a meal there, and she truly did feel hunger pangs. Stopping in at the cute little tea shop she’d passed earlier seemed like a perfect idea. She locked the cottage behind her and retraced her steps to the nearby tearoom.

She was approaching the sweet sign in the window of Miss Milly’s Tea & Biscuits when a young woman in a peach floral sundress turned away from her parked car and abruptly bumped into Charlotte, causing her to drop the skeleton keys in her hand.

“Oh love, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” the young woman asked. “Can you tell my mind’s miles away?”

“I’m fine, not even hurt,” Charlotte said, accepting the keys the woman returned to her.

“At least let me get the door.” The woman opened it for her. “After you.”

Charlotte thanked her then stepped inside the pretty tearoom. Each of the well-worn tables with their elegant floral tablecloths were filled with customers.

A round gray-haired woman set a ceramic kettle on the table before her then turned to Charlotte. “Welcome. I’m Millie, but I’m afraid we’re a bit full at the moment.”

The young woman who’d entered behind Charlotte said, “She can join Simon and me.” To Charlotte, she said, “It’s the least I can do, and you can keep me and my brother from arguing the entire time. I’m Freya.”

“Oh, well, I—”

“There he is,” Freya said, starting towards a handsome thirtyish man holding a hand aloft. “Follow me.”

Charlotte had never been one to shy away from strangers, especially good-looking ones—and being hungry, she didn’t want to wait for an open table—so she followed Freya to the one where Simon sat, his eyes watching her curiously.

“Thank you for allowing me to join you. I’m Charlotte Wilton, new owner of—”

“—Wilton Cottage,” Simon finished for her.

Surprised, she said, “Well, yes. How did you—”

“Know? I’m the one who proposed the deal to Wally,” he said. “The cottage must be passed down through the family, so we tracked you down and offered it to you free if you convert it into a Bed and Breakfast. We figured it’d be a great way to solve one problem—the lack of lodging for tourists—and fix another—restoring a beautiful old cottage on our main street that’s been mostly neglected for two decades.”

“So you’re the new owner,” Freya said. “I expected someone older, retired.”

“I had to dig into my retirement to get here,” Charlotte admitted with a sly smile. “I’ve kept this a secret from everyone—”

Here Charlotte looked my way, her piercing eyes making me jerk my fingers away from the keys.

“—which has made this challenge much more fun. I can’t wait to get started.”

As previously mentioned, Charlotte never was one to do what others expected. And so, a few months later—fully moved into Wilton Cottage in Reedsy-upon-Avon, England—with the rooms sparkling clean, freshly painted, and filled with charming antiques, Charlotte’s Bed and Breakfast was finally ready for guests, but they weren’t the touristy type.

“Welcome to Wilton Cottage Retreat,” Charlotte said to the first writer who arrived.

“Wait, writer?” I asked. I’d been so busy typing that I’d forgotten I wasn’t completely in control.

Charlotte ignored me. “While you’re here,” she said to her guest, “you are to write a story sending me on a far-off adventure. If I don’t like the way the story’s progressing, I may nudge it in a different direction from time to time, but in the end, it is your story. I expect it to be somewhere between one-thousand and three-thousand words. Are you up to the challenge?”

The writer, who had been partially hidden by the open door, stepped forward. I jumped back from my keyboard. Words continued to fly across the screen as internally I told myself, This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.

But it was. That writer, the first guest in Wilton Cottage, was me.

“I’m ready,” the me in the cottage said, and I watched as my body followed Charlotte up the staircase to a large windowless room with a couple of soft-looking sage green sofas and four antique writing desks, one along each wall, positioned to face the room.

“You’ll have the whole floor to yourself this week, and can pick any of the desks you’d like,” Charlotte said, beaming. “Same with the bedrooms behind the doors near the desks. I want you to feel comfortable here, and plan to ply you with an endless supply of tea and biscuits—cookies. I’m already becoming more British,” Charlotte said with a laugh. “Maybe it’s my boyfriend Simon’s influence.”

Simon, from the tearoom?

As the me typing up this story watched, the England-based me inside Wilton Cottage looked around the spacious room then said, “Thanks. I can’t wait to start writing.”

I looked up from my laptop. I was still sitting in my spare bedroom at home, my husband’s basketball game droning on in the living room. How can I be in the cottage and be home at the same time?

On the screen, words appeared in a line, typed by an unseen hand: Charlotte was pleased that Kerry Hamilton was so eager to begin, for in truth, Charlotte was ready to head off on the adventures each story would send her. She’d always dreamed of travelling the world, living new experiences. And, to be fair, the writer could experience everything with the main character—that was what made writing so enjoyable.

Turning to me, Charlotte said, both in Wilton Cottage and to the me behind the laptop at home, “Aren’t you glad we’re going on this adventure together?”

And as she spoke, I realized I no longer wrote in the spare bedroom of my house, my husband in the other room. I was now transported into that writing space in Wilton Cottage, the scent of freshly-baked scones reaching my nostrils. It seemed I’d been here all along, writing this story.

“I’ll bring us up tea at eleven,” Charlotte said with a smile, then shut the door behind her.