Gearing up for the read

I find that writing, like reading, is something you really have to be up for, in the mood, totally 100% focused, to really get the most out of the experience. I read an interview recently with poet Fiona Sampson (and apparent lecturer at my university) who spoke of two types of writers: those who write out of appreciation for language, and those who feel simply compelled to write. While I can appreciate language and have tried (with little success) to speak and understand French, Spanish and Greek at different times on some level, I don’t believe that is why I write. Neither am I compelled to write. I have friends who are driven by this need, this seeming desire to record, and others who I believe see the finished product in their heads, and have the persistency to write every day, never letting the well run dry. Perhaps like Ernest Hemingway they have realised that the key to persistency in writing a manuscript lies in maintaining a momentum, a rhythm, a rigid system of which within contained a golden vein to creativity. Either way, setting up the system is fine enough, but to live by it really is another matter. Toni Morrison gets up at 4am every day to write. Enid Blyton in her writing days somehow managed 6000 words every day (6000 words!) and would let little interrupt the process. Could I do either of those things?

Seriously, I don’t need to answer that. That I couldn’t live by any system anyway is second focus to the fact that I find it difficult and not entirely enjoyable to write. For me the difficulty is in forming the thoughts coherently in my mind before squeezing them out on the page, while all the while my mind is racing ahead to all the doors in the plot I could open, glimpsing at them all, while also trying to remember that thing I had to do that I didn’t do yesterday; that person whose birthday I forgot which was 2 weeks ago and if I leave any longer which I certainly will there will just be no point anyway, which is kind of inconveniently convenient… Anyways, a bit like a brilliant scene on The Simpsons, (where Homer gets duped into buying a juicer on a TV ad), it’s like putting a bag full of oranges in the juicer and getting a few drops in return. (“You mean, you got all that juice from just one bag of oranges?!”)

Even now at my parents house I’m sat in the lounge typing this while my Dad, brother and his girlfriend are watching something on TV that talks about difficulty, dreams and disaster… voiced over a picture of a woman with an alarming beaded necklace that is big and red. This is where I’m temporarily living, in a fold out bed, and I’m finding it quite difficult to focus on writing this even when I’m not saying anything. I tried reading before but I just glossed over words that bounced off my eyes into the glare of the TV screen. It’s not that I need silence (it helps, but there will always be background noise of some sort) just a sound that is consistent in its nature, like traffic, a hum of electricity, or some bland 90’s pop music. TV, is the worst, with its highs and low much like classical music, only it has colours which will always tempt you to look up just for one pointless, meaningless second, within which you will learn nothing but lose completely your train of thought you slipped into.

I was saying?

I guess I find it harder to focus on the kind of fiction that I really do enjoy, the books that really blow you away by their depth and intelligence and sheer completeness. I get distracted far too easily about such inconsequential things like TV and Internet… I want to stay in-tune and up to date with everything that’s going on, but you just can’t read, learn, and know everything. ‘The more you know the more you know that you don’t know shit’ MF Doom speaks on the fantastic hip-hop album Operation Doomsday (I love rap music), so I just have to pick and choose and do away with the crap and mundane. And I guess that is why I write, to be an author, to own something attached to me in a way that will never be duplicated, that won’t be mirrored by millions of people doing exactly the same thing at the same time, no matter how pointless or ultimately useless it is. Writing is seen by many as a kind of therapy, and I think there is truth in that. Whenever you hit that big publish button or finish that chapter, when you see the fruits of your labour, it makes you feel satisfied. If just for a moment, and that alone makes writing it worth it.