“To avoid starting work, I sometimes stop for coffee at a nearby cafe.”
Deborah Levy, South African born British playwright, novelist, and poet said the above title in today’s Guardian UK version. It’s forthright, and I like that. Below she explains a writer’s winding ways and byways:
“When I begin writing a novel, I usually know where I want to get to, I just don’t know how to get there. I plan a route and follow my directions. Sometimes this works well. Yet, it’s when I detour from the map and get lost that the writing starts to open its eyes. In case you think I like getting lost, I should tell you that I resist it with all my will. This is always a futile battle. Eventually I surrender to the unknown route, write for a few hours and take a look at the new view.”
As someone who is now working toward the end of the first draft of a first novel, I’ve had to embrace simple but difficult concepts, such as changing the course of a story or the way it’s told to suit the way it naturally wants to go. What it wants naturally will flourish, adding flesh to my original skeleton. Another, more physiological, change I had to make because I can’t sit still. Not moving often enough makes me ache. Our modern working model is a very sedentary one. Even with doctors telling us to get up from our desks and move often, I still had a gleaming idea of how I should be in my habits. This Fall, I’ve successfully worked this part of me into my writing schedule. I simply get up. At home, I leave my iPad to do laundry. Sit back down and write. I get up later to vacuum. Sit back down and write. The only difficult part was embracing it as part of my process. I don’t know why I hung on so long to an unnatural model of work. Who sits for four hours straight? People with no inflammation. Or people with an iron will which I do not have. If I go out to write, I start in one place, the library for an hour or more. Then I get up and walk or drive somewhere to get coffee and write for 2 or 3 more hours. The words are coming. It no longer matters how they get here.
You can read about Deborah Levy and her writing shed at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/deborah-levy-my-writing-day
