Light
Oh, it's been so long. That's what happens when you give up travelling to write; you no longer have anything left to write about since why would anyone be interested in the details of a life spent sitting at a desk. But having said that, I'm being disingenuous because I'm obsessed with reading about how writers spend their lives, how they manage to find the hours to write as well as the money to pay the bills (I haven't worked that one out yet...though a generous and indulgent partner helps). I read all the weekend profiles in the books pages, I listen to interviews on Radio 4, I attend readings, awaiting for the epiphany which will tell me what I've been missing, what I've forgotten to do all these years.
Because it has been years, over twenty to be precise, since Mrs Francis, she of the butter-cream foundation face, told me in the first year of secondary school, (that must be the equivalent to sixth grade) when I was gawky (oh I wish now), untouched by wrinkles or disappointment, that I would be a writer when I grew up. I didn't know what that meant; Dad was a plumber, Mum a secretary, but it sounded good. And for some reason, unlike everything else I studied at that age, it lodged in my mind. And, inevitably, writing stories was my favourite form of homework. I once filled a whole exercise book with my story of cat burglars (who, of course, were feline; how clever I thought I was) because I couldn't stop. The teacher was horrified (now, having spent a few years marking papers, I know why) but still grudgingly gave me an A-. I didn't grasp that I could make a living out of this; I simply thought it more interesting than dissecting toads and measuring momentum.
I've tried writing stories ever since, or perhaps I should say books. Sometimes I feel like I've lived all the cliches: the garret in Paris, the early mornings before work, the American coffee-shop scribbling. Ultimately, I now realise, there is only one thing that will get a book written and it's the one that I've always shied away from, that many shy away from. It's called work. I realised this only recently, embarrassingly recently, since I'm four, no five, months into writing a first draft. Two weeks ago, I went to my favourite spot in the London Library, on a Saturday. For some reason. the fact that it was a Saturday made a lot of difference and I spun through my 2000 words at great speed. When I left, and I have to say I only left because it was closing for the night, I was on a high, a high of having hit my required word limit but also of virtue. It was the first time in years that I'd worked, willingly, on a weekend and I realised that I'd really enjoyed it. Because writing had, has stopped being about the lottery, the massive advance, the book deal, the fame. Writing has become, at last, its own reward.
Obviously it helps that I'm nearing the end. Now there are some words I never thought I'd write. The end. It really is within sight. Okay, it's only a draft and there's another lifetime of editing to work through but, oh the pleasure, the sheer pride I'll feel at finally finishing the bloody thing. I almost don't care if it's published (no, that's a lie, I do) or not; I'm just glad I've tamed this particular misery, the misery of desperation. For it is always after the joyous, pleasurable, infinitesmal high slopes of inspiration - what a fabulous idea I've had, and just think where it will lead - that the doldrums of desperation appear and I stumble. Six weeks of gleeful longhand or typing are followed by the reality of how much further I have to go, how loooooonnng it is, how I need a job to pay the bills then I'll do it in the evenings...and the book remains a heap of printouts and a few forlorn Word files that are no longer compatible with my operating system. I have folder after folder of those.
This time I didn't have that choice. It wasn't so much that I'd given up all forms of work, permanent and freelance, it was more that this was my last chance. I'd abandoned jobs, no careers, twice for the spurious pleasure of writing a novel or at least a narrative, rather than a guide to the best areas of the feet to rub when treating constipation and if, on this occasion I didn't complete something neither my confidence nor my finances could face it again. In fact, although renegotiating the overdraft on Christmas Eve made me realise that I couldn't afford to keep writing, I also realised that I couldn't afford to stop. If I didn't put my proverbial money where my mouth was, then I might as well become an accountant and earn a decent income instead of faffing about in jobs where I taught and edited other people's books whilst neatly sidestepping the nagging feeling that I should be writing my own.
So, despite the yawning abyss of debt I kept going. I can safely say that for most of January and February I was miserable, determined to do anything but this. I had so many ideas for so many other books, so many ideas for earning money and everything seemed more suitable, sensible and, yes, enjoyable than another six hours of writing. Perhaps I would become a journalist, go back to teaching, retrain entirely. Anything, everything was possible; this was just filling time and pages. But when I started work on Saturdays something shifted. It was a tiny shift, as if I'd been pushed, or pushed myself, just that little bit harder, stopped imagining alternative universes and stayed in the one I had, after all, chosen. Yet it was enough to make me aware that I really wanted to finish this book and that, in this case, I could and I would. And now I don't mind the doldrums so much, because for once I realise that they end, that there is light at the end of the long dark tunnel that lies beyond inspiration. That light is not money or fame, as it always was in the past; it's simply the knowledge that if I can reach the end once I can do so again, that writing is not just having your head up, looking at the stars for inspiration, but having your head down, over a page.
Because it has been years, over twenty to be precise, since Mrs Francis, she of the butter-cream foundation face, told me in the first year of secondary school, (that must be the equivalent to sixth grade) when I was gawky (oh I wish now), untouched by wrinkles or disappointment, that I would be a writer when I grew up. I didn't know what that meant; Dad was a plumber, Mum a secretary, but it sounded good. And for some reason, unlike everything else I studied at that age, it lodged in my mind. And, inevitably, writing stories was my favourite form of homework. I once filled a whole exercise book with my story of cat burglars (who, of course, were feline; how clever I thought I was) because I couldn't stop. The teacher was horrified (now, having spent a few years marking papers, I know why) but still grudgingly gave me an A-. I didn't grasp that I could make a living out of this; I simply thought it more interesting than dissecting toads and measuring momentum.
I've tried writing stories ever since, or perhaps I should say books. Sometimes I feel like I've lived all the cliches: the garret in Paris, the early mornings before work, the American coffee-shop scribbling. Ultimately, I now realise, there is only one thing that will get a book written and it's the one that I've always shied away from, that many shy away from. It's called work. I realised this only recently, embarrassingly recently, since I'm four, no five, months into writing a first draft. Two weeks ago, I went to my favourite spot in the London Library, on a Saturday. For some reason. the fact that it was a Saturday made a lot of difference and I spun through my 2000 words at great speed. When I left, and I have to say I only left because it was closing for the night, I was on a high, a high of having hit my required word limit but also of virtue. It was the first time in years that I'd worked, willingly, on a weekend and I realised that I'd really enjoyed it. Because writing had, has stopped being about the lottery, the massive advance, the book deal, the fame. Writing has become, at last, its own reward.
Obviously it helps that I'm nearing the end. Now there are some words I never thought I'd write. The end. It really is within sight. Okay, it's only a draft and there's another lifetime of editing to work through but, oh the pleasure, the sheer pride I'll feel at finally finishing the bloody thing. I almost don't care if it's published (no, that's a lie, I do) or not; I'm just glad I've tamed this particular misery, the misery of desperation. For it is always after the joyous, pleasurable, infinitesmal high slopes of inspiration - what a fabulous idea I've had, and just think where it will lead - that the doldrums of desperation appear and I stumble. Six weeks of gleeful longhand or typing are followed by the reality of how much further I have to go, how loooooonnng it is, how I need a job to pay the bills then I'll do it in the evenings...and the book remains a heap of printouts and a few forlorn Word files that are no longer compatible with my operating system. I have folder after folder of those.
This time I didn't have that choice. It wasn't so much that I'd given up all forms of work, permanent and freelance, it was more that this was my last chance. I'd abandoned jobs, no careers, twice for the spurious pleasure of writing a novel or at least a narrative, rather than a guide to the best areas of the feet to rub when treating constipation and if, on this occasion I didn't complete something neither my confidence nor my finances could face it again. In fact, although renegotiating the overdraft on Christmas Eve made me realise that I couldn't afford to keep writing, I also realised that I couldn't afford to stop. If I didn't put my proverbial money where my mouth was, then I might as well become an accountant and earn a decent income instead of faffing about in jobs where I taught and edited other people's books whilst neatly sidestepping the nagging feeling that I should be writing my own.
So, despite the yawning abyss of debt I kept going. I can safely say that for most of January and February I was miserable, determined to do anything but this. I had so many ideas for so many other books, so many ideas for earning money and everything seemed more suitable, sensible and, yes, enjoyable than another six hours of writing. Perhaps I would become a journalist, go back to teaching, retrain entirely. Anything, everything was possible; this was just filling time and pages. But when I started work on Saturdays something shifted. It was a tiny shift, as if I'd been pushed, or pushed myself, just that little bit harder, stopped imagining alternative universes and stayed in the one I had, after all, chosen. Yet it was enough to make me aware that I really wanted to finish this book and that, in this case, I could and I would. And now I don't mind the doldrums so much, because for once I realise that they end, that there is light at the end of the long dark tunnel that lies beyond inspiration. That light is not money or fame, as it always was in the past; it's simply the knowledge that if I can reach the end once I can do so again, that writing is not just having your head up, looking at the stars for inspiration, but having your head down, over a page.
posted by Louise at 2:06 PM
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