Putting it Off

Sitting down looking at a blank screen or a blank piece of paper, my attention immediately strays away to the view out of the window. The beautiful shape of the spreading cedar tree and the very green grass.

Every author or journalist faces perpetual deadlines which are always too close, despite the fact at one time they had a longer lead time. With a deadline approaching, all that empty space on a page can seem especially empty.

Like other writers, I have my routines and my place to write but there is always that remarkable ability to dilly dally, check an email, check a website, order some dog food from Amazon…it is just where to start. My sister Lucy’s advice is always to just unload – fling my thoughts all down, even in a mess and she might bring me a cup of tea. That is always an advantage as she has the most wonderful laugh which makes everything seem lighter as it echoes though rooms.

One thing I find I do need is classical music in the background – familiar, relaxing and stress reducing. It seems as if the melodies and harmonies, both progressive and circular, resonate deeply into connections in my brain and help emotional memories.

So that, of course, takes a little more time out to choose the CD.

The room where I write, holds the memories of my previous books along with piles of notes but above all else, it is cold. The next job therefore is to switch the heater on. Hopefully two dogs are with me so they may need a quick cuddle and I have brought some bottles of water.

I often ask friends where they write. As you might imagine, usually it is a garden room or a cosy, book lined study but it is always a place apart from everyday life. Jane Austen sat at a table in a corner of her drawing room in her home at Chawton,  stories and characters emerging from her goose quill pen.

Such pens had been used since the sixth century and would be carefully sharpened or dressed with a special quill knife. It then had a small slit in it to control the flow of ink in the hollow shaft which, every 4 or 6 words, would need to be refilled once more from the ink well.

Paper was produced by various English paper mills and then distributed through local stationers but the ink was indelible and the paper expensive so the thought and planning would have been developed in advance of writing each paragraph. It is very different now.

Many writers’ homes are now open to visit, whether it is Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West, Henry James’ house in Rye, Sussex or Thomas Hardy’s cottage in Dorset. Views of gardens play a part for most writers and I can seek inspiration amongst winding walks or gazing at wooded hillsides. It is a calming prospect and one which is so often part of my subject as I tend to write about those who have lived here before me or the history of the landscape and gardens.

If you visit Thomas Hardy’s cottage, you find yourself in a world of mixed orchards, vegetable gardens, scrambling roses and deep Dorset valley views, whereas Ernest Hemingway lived part of his life in a colonial style house in an oasis of tropical plants leading out to the sea or the local people of Key West. A sense of place makes a book.

Immersed in the books of Daphne du Maurier or Agatha Christie, you are so filled with a sense of place that your imagination knows exactly where you are walking or sitting and therefore you want to read the next book.

As well as ‘place’, writers often find a ritual time to write and think, plot and shape as well. Routine helps and until I began to write myself, I had absolutely no idea how challenging and tiring writing was. Once you are into a book, it is all that absorbs your conversations and thoughts so that blank pages fill and the entire concentration around you reflects the process.

When the weather improves, an outside corner of the garden might call me – with the dogs of course and perhaps a gardening fork just in case I see something which needs doing. In reality, this means I am either throwing a tennis ball for Isla or getting rid of those pernickety weeds and therefore might write at least ten words.

Despite my procrastinations, this latest book is, however, nearly finished, but it takes a little time to settle and for my head to race less. It is a sculpture of chapters and words which have enough shape and form but are not perfectly smooth. It needs texture or may be that is an excuse for being most imperfect. I have been editing every chapter anxious and absorbed that I left something out I meant to put in, or then again maybe it is fine …my mind then worries with what else I forgot or whether the readers will like it? Perhaps the dogs need a walk – I hope they like the book…