Ten days in a snowed in Himachali village across Christmas and New Year. You write a book about the year that just ended. We bring an editor, a designer, a writing coach. On the morning of January 1st, it goes to a press in Mandi. By lunch, you're holding a copy that didn't exist when the year began.
Every December, the same thing happens. You scroll the year. You half write a journal entry. You make a list of resolutions you forget by Republic Day. The year ends without a shape, and the next one begins without a memory of the last.
The Inventory is what would happen if you took ten days, removed every distraction except the village around you, and built a book about your year with three people whose entire job is to help you do it well. One real editor. One designer. One writing coach. Daily prompts that aren't the ones you've seen on Instagram. Ninety minute writing sessions, two a day, then your time is your own.
Some travellers will write a memoir of the year. Some will write fifteen letters to people who shaped it. Some will write a book of regrets. Some will photograph their year and write captions. The form is yours. The pages are yours. On the morning of January 1st, the files go to a small press in Mandi. By lunch on Jan 2nd, you sign each other's copies. By Jan 3rd, you're home holding a book that is, literally, your year.
The only rule of The Inventory is the writing schedule. Two ninety minute sessions a day, with prompts the editor walks you through. You can write badly. You can write little. You cannot skip the session. The shape of your book is made in those sessions. Outside them, the days are yours. Walk. Sleep. Call home. Read by the fire. Nobody is taking your phone. Nobody is grading you.
Overnight bus from Delhi or Chandigarh. You arrive in the valley on the morning of the 25th. No writing yet. The first day is for landing. A long walk in the forest, a Christmas lunch the host family has been cooking since dawn, an early sleep. Tomorrow the work begins.
Three days of digging. Two sessions a day, ninety minutes each, with the writing coach. "Write about the email you didn't send. The person who left your life this year. The work you're privately proud of. The version of yourself you killed." Real prompts, not cute ones. You will write things you didn't know were in you. The evenings are quiet. Most travellers sleep ten hours.
Two days where the editor sits with each of you separately and finds the shape of your book. Is it a memoir? A book of letters? A photo essay with captions? Fifteen lists? The form is yours, the editor helps you choose well. The designer starts laying out covers. The village fills with snow.
A long, silent writing day. Wood fires in every room, food brought to where you're sitting, nobody disturbs anyone. At 8pm, dinner together. Each traveller reads one sentence from their book aloud. That is the New Year's Eve. The most honest party you'll ever attend. By midnight most of the group is asleep, and that's correct.
By 9am on the first day of the new year, fifteen files are on a press in Mandi. The designer has been up most of the night. By 2pm the books are bound. By 6pm they're driven up the valley. You open yours alone, in your room, before anyone else's. A small printed cloth bound book of the year that just ended. With your name on the cover.
On the morning of Jan 2nd, each traveller reads their first page aloud to the group. Some will laugh. Some will not get through it. Both happen. Then everyone signs every other traveller's copy. The bus leaves at 2pm. You're home by morning of Jan 3rd, holding a book that didn't exist ten days ago, and now does, and is yours.
A real editor for ten days, a designer running an overnight print sprint, a writing coach, a cloth bound book, and a winterised valley stay across Christmas and New Year. This is not a Himachal trip. It is a writing residency that happens to be in a snowed in village. If you'd like to soft hold a seat without paying yet, write to us and we'll keep it open for 48 hours.
You don't need to be a writer. The editor and the coach do that work with you. You need a year that mattered, in any direction. A founder who almost shut down. A parent in the first year. Someone who left a long relationship. Someone who lost a parent. Someone who finally moved cities. Someone who quietly built something nobody saw. If your 2026 deserves a book, sign up. If it doesn't, sign up for Drop 04.
Fifteen seats. We read every application. The Inventory works when the room is fifteen people who all show up to write, not fifteen people taking a vacation. If you're in, we'll tell you. If you're not, we'll tell you that too, and we'll keep your name for the next Drop.