The Scent Trail by Celia Lyttelton.
When Celia Lyttelton visited a bespoke perfumer, she realized a long-held ambition: to have a scent created solely for her. Entering this heady, exotic world of oils and essences, she was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences. And once drawn into this world, she felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume. Celia paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.
Although not a book about writing, The Scent Trail, made me to reflect upon how evocative scents can be, especially when setting a scene in a story. I love to burn sandalwood when I’m writing as it draws me into the spice filled cities and shimmering deserts of my fantasy world. On a day-to-day basis, I prefer lavender as I find it calms my mind and soothes the soul. In my perfumes I prefer fresh, green notes, Green Tea being my favourite. Although the scent Arabie by Serge Luten with its melange of cedar and sandalwood, enriched with dried figs and dates, nutmeg, cumin and clove, as described in Celia’s book, sounds absolutely delicious and is on my hit list. I also love the smell of my daughter’s Avocado and Calendula conditioner. Infused with geranium and clove, I liberally apply it to her long hair after her bath. It seems to have a calming affect on the both of us and I just love breathing in its earthy notes as we cuddle on the lounge together.
Does anyone else burn incense whilst they write? If so, what are your favourite scents?
When Celia Lyttelton visited a bespoke perfumer, she realized a long-held ambition: to have a scent created solely for her. Entering this heady, exotic world of oils and essences, she was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences. And once drawn into this world, she felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume. Celia paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.
Although not a book about writing, The Scent Trail, made me to reflect upon how evocative scents can be, especially when setting a scene in a story. I love to burn sandalwood when I’m writing as it draws me into the spice filled cities and shimmering deserts of my fantasy world. On a day-to-day basis, I prefer lavender as I find it calms my mind and soothes the soul. In my perfumes I prefer fresh, green notes, Green Tea being my favourite. Although the scent Arabie by Serge Luten with its melange of cedar and sandalwood, enriched with dried figs and dates, nutmeg, cumin and clove, as described in Celia’s book, sounds absolutely delicious and is on my hit list. I also love the smell of my daughter’s Avocado and Calendula conditioner. Infused with geranium and clove, I liberally apply it to her long hair after her bath. It seems to have a calming affect on the both of us and I just love breathing in its earthy notes as we cuddle on the lounge together.
Does anyone else burn incense whilst they write? If so, what are your favourite scents?
10 comments:
This post was so intriguing and sensuous. It made me think about the way I write - on a cluttered table and with bits of paper everywhere. It's all chaotic and a bit of a mess. Although my writing room is huge and lovely and has bay windows and lots of bookshelves the only scent that comes in is the random night scent of jasmine or mock orange. I never seek out any scents. But now I'm going to.
I've got a study upstairs but I never use it as it is easy to keep an eye on my daughter if I work from the dining room. I've squashed a tiny desk in the corner that has my laptop, one single lamp and an old cup filled with pens. My study actually looks out onto some gum trees with a resident koala. Your study sounds devine (I adore bay windows). My next house will definitely be a single storey. I also have a huge jasmine vine in the courtyard. The whole house fills with perfume when it is in flower.
I've just noticed that the Queensland Writers Centre has a blog page called 'The Empty Page Blog'. I think we should get our blog linked as it might lead to more discussion and exposure. I don't know how to go about it though.
I had a look at the Empty Page blog but couldn't work out what it was for exactly. So I've written to the QWC to see if information about our blog could be usefully added. I think it would be good if we had more people in our online group but I've found that different people don't want to have to learn how to set up a blog so fall by the wayside. By the way Skye if you ever decided you were hankering for a long drawn out game of Scrabble online please let me know. I have a few opponents in Facebook and it's a lot of fun (no pressure however) regards Barbara
Sounds great, but with uni starting in a week, work and therapy I probably won't be able to. Speaking about uni I still haven't received my unit materials so I'm getting a bit anxious, there will be no time for any pre-reading. Don't know whether it is worth all the anxiety. I'm a sleepless wreck at the moment.
Barbara, I was thinking maybe we could re-advertise in the WQ newsletter like you did two years ago to get some fresh faces to join the group. What does everyone think?
I'll write to them and see what kind of effect we have. I'm about to begin an MA in writing myself so maybe I can gather a bit of interest there too. It's always hard to get people to participate in things. In the physical writing group I go to hardly anyone actually writes, which seems a bit strange. I'll let you know the outcomes, ttfn B
Which course are you doing? I would love to study again at QUT but they don't offer external courses in the Creative Arts.
Hello Skye, I'm doing it at Swinburne and it's only available online, which I much prefer. I also think Swinburne is a much more established University in this area and has produced some impressive alumni including Alexis Wright. It's horrendously expensive of course, but I think may be tax deductible in part for me because of my work in web writing. You could still enrol if you wanted to although I imagine you're rather busy! (to put it mildly) - will post some observations about it on this Blog once I start the work itself, regards Barbara
Yes, I've looked at that course. I've decided to defer uni until next semester so I can complete the Writing Course. I would to hear what you think of Swinburne.
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