I am a freelance writer, poet, aspiring author, endless doodler and chronic daydreamer, though I remain at liberty to change these character descriptions as and when the inclination takes me and wholly dependant on which way the wind is blowing.
It should be no great surprise or revelation that someone who goes by the name of TheVirtualRecluse lives a relatively quiet and somewhat solitary life.
However, please let me assure you that my reclusive lifestyle is all quite by serendipitous circumstance rather than some form of malady.
When you make the decision to leave your busy IT career, your home, your country and all the trappings that go with it and up-sticks to move from Kent in England to a very rural, tranquil part of France, a quiet life is generally what will follow.
- Long, busy days at work have been replaced by long and not so busy days on the sofa with my trusty MAC.
- Instead of actually seeing my friends and family, aside from the ones I live with, an almost constant exchange on Facebook now wholly represents my social life.
- Nights out on the town have been taken over by cosy nights in with a bottle of wine and Netflix.
- Lunches have almost entirely replaced evening trips to restaurants due to the cultural popularity of the ‘menu midi’ and the fact that many rural restaurants do not even open in the evenings.
- Shopping trips to mammoth sprawling retail parks, that were once punctuated with huge vats of coffee accompanied by the smallest slice of cake known to man that indeed cost more than the total of everything else I had purchased on said trip, have now been replaced with the continual scouring of online shopping sites, whereby I now spend more on the postage and packaging than I do on any item ever purchased.
In essence, moving to rural France has a similar impact on your life as starting a family, only it is far less stressful and you benefit from a hell of a lot more sleep.
I decided, after quite a long and protracted period of not really doing much, to start a blog to continue my writing and to keep myself actively creative whilst I made the enormous, daily and frankly exhausting effort to overcome the current stagnation that is the writing of my first novel. A hurdle that many a writer will be familiar with.
I hope you enjoy reading my posts and can relate to many of my observations.
Finally, just as a little shameless and flagrant self-advertising, please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss any writing opportunities, features, collaborations or bespoke projects that you would like me to assist in.
Please address any correspondence to: editor@thevirtualrecluse.com