The one essential commodity for any writer is time. How long has it been since I had the idea to write about – what I write?! Long enough. And the list of obstacles that have so far rendered this impossible are thus:
the day job, the journey to and from the day job, the journey back home: peeling away from the urban capital to the huge skies and parochial claustrophobia of Norfolk, the demands of relatives, friends and the BF – all of whom must be maintained (without obligation I might add!), especially the BF, who’s cocktail making skills prove a heady distraction…
And then the incidentals, such as one’s bigotted old landlady deciding to evict me because she thinks the BF is living here illegally (wrong!), catching a cold (no it isn’t Swine Flu!), getting an interview in a big scary institutional establishment (for weeks I have hauled books on various subjects including ‘How to be successful in Interviews’ around with me, only to find that joy of joys and yet horror of horrors, I got the job! So now there is no self imposed deadline to have the first three agent-attracting chapters in the bag by Christmas. I can relax, kick back, take my time…
But no, I cant, I mustn’t. I have just read ’100 ways to write a book: *42 The Adichie method (Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche of course) in this month’s Myselxia, and she says: ‘ Have no routine, no rituals. (I never understood when I heard writers say, “Every morning I’m up at nine, writing, every morning.” And I think, “Really? What are you writing every morning?”‘ I have to say this appeals to me greatly. The miserable thought that out of one’s self imposed discipline, every night at 7.30pm I must sit down and write, regardless of whether I have spent the whole day doing it at work, or my brain has no creative energy left in it after say, attempting to understand the complexities and anomalies of Taxonomy (this happens regularly at work) is a definite barrier to feeling free and unrestricted about the creative process. The whole point of this blog is an aide memoir of sorts; so it begins! Ta da!
