Wednesday 11 April 2012

Finding time to write



I skimmed a piece about The Golden Notebook in the Guardian Review over breakfast this morning - I've never finished the GN, despite being told by many people I should, so I was quite glad to see that Diana Athill at least also found it hard going.

Anyway, the bit that made me grit my teeth was where yet again I read that there's no excuse not to write - in particular that children aren't an excuse. How many times have I felt admonished by other writers to stop making excuses and get down to writing?

You have children? Pah! Ignore them!Write at midnight! Find a partner who'll look after them!

You have a job? Write at 5am before you leave!Or give up work and starve - but you'll be able to write all day!

One of the benefits of being a bit older is that I don't feel I have to listen to this rubbish.When I read profiles of writers who gave everything up - or who forced their families to give everything up - so that they could do nothing but write, I'm not envious.

I like being part of a family. I also like my work , and it pays the bills.

The problem is that I also love to write - it's what wakes me in the middle of the night, it's what has me talking to myself as I walk the fields, telling and re-telling stories and finding the words, it's what makes me impatient for everyone to leave the house on a writing day so that I can have space and silence. Writing defines me.

So how to find time to write? Midnight's out - years of ME taught me it's not sustainable. Instead I award myself writing days - I block them out in my work and family calendars and guard them jealously. Of course I write at other times too - a couple of hours one morning if work's not urgent, an hour after dinner if I really want to finish something. But I hate the bittiness of that.

Writing days are where all the steam I've built up through a week or two of not writing - or at least of not writing stories, as I'll have been writing copy and features - it's where all of it comes out. And though no one could call my writing domestic, the time I spend with my family and my friends feeds into my writing. I'm hearing rhythms, seeing strange juxtapositions, wondering why, or what if. And after many years of forgetting it, nowadays I do always carry a notebook and everything goes in there.

It works well for me, although I have had to learn to be patient. I've discovered that when I've finished a story, even if it's short, only a couple of thousand words, I need a break. Even if I had another week free, and a brilliant idea for the next story, I couldn't start it straight away - I need the old story to seep out of my mind, and the new one to sidle in slowly, while I explore its possibilities.

I did try earlier this year to be more productive - after all, in my professional life I often have to produce copy day after day for different clients, in various voices, telling a new story each time. So surely I can do the same with my short stories?

Well no, I can't. I can churn short stories out, and they're not bad, but they're not good enough.

So I'm going to stick to my pressure cooker style of writing - and while the pressure builds up, I'm going to spend some time with my family. Sod Doris Lessing.


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