I’m much worse at getting up in the mornings than I used to be when my children were small. There’s only one of them left at home now, and being 17 he runs himself. I drag myself out of bed in order to wave him off the premises and remind him he still has a mum.
Rachel Hore
The upside of the sleepiness is that I bumble around semi-conscious first thing, and as a writer that’s a good creative state to be in. Writing down the first draft of a novel is an act of stamina. The ideas in my head have to be got onto the page in some shape or form, even if they then have to be thoroughly edited. That dream-like state makes the process easier. Characters form in my head, scenes roll out and I simply have to type them onto the screen with eager fingers. That’s why settling at my desk at nine in the morning is essential to the process.
There are days when this cannot happen, especially since I teach Creative Writing part-time at the University of East Anglia. On these mornings, I drink two reviving cups of strong coffee, gather up all the work I’ve prepared the night before, and cycle furiously to campus, a mile away from my home in Norwich.
Teaching demands a completely different mind set from writing fiction. On university days I must be alert, organized, efficient, flexible, articulate. Moving from one state to the other is sometimes difficult. I might arrive home from a day’s teaching full of thoughts of writing, only to find that I can’t settle. Likewise, several lonely days of writing is bad preparation for a day of teaching. Somehow, though, I muddle through.
My week otherwise, has a few regular markers. Several of these involve exercise: Pilates, swimming with a friend, my turn to walk the dog (my husband is the faithful dog-walker, but every now and then he rebels). I always try to slot in seeing friends for coffee, and then there’s the usual round of tasks: food shopping, errands, boring stuff. I often work at weekends in order to get everything finished, especially university marking. If we go out it’s to see films, attend literary events or to eat, and I belong to a choir, which meets on Friday nights. Sunday morning church I love because the liturgy makes me feel peaceful and happy.
When I’m having a book published my routine falls apart. Travelling to and from literary festivals, writing blog posts for literary websites, Tweeting, writing scripts for talks all mean novel writing is elbowed out. Whilst publication is an exciting time, the regular writer will usually to be well into the writing of the next book. It’s a jolt to have to stop that in order to publicize the previous one.
The writing life is a privileged existence in the respect that you’re your own master, but it’s also a precarious one. Will the publisher renew the contract? Will you be able to come up with ideas and write them down fast enough to meet the next deadline? Combining writing with some sort of regular part-time job, such as teaching, has its benefits – as well as the stimulations and the regular money it means the periods you get to the desk to write are a real need and feel like a stolen pleasure.
