This is a post for paid subscribers. It’s the first of a series in which I want to be completely open, honest and authentic about the process of writing books, the life of the professional author; the sacrifices, the frustrations, the joys, the privilege, the pain. Some of these diary entries will be without a paywall, some of them will be with a paywall, because being a writer is how I make my living.
Notes
Buy my nature-landscape memoir The Ghost Lake Here.
Buy my latest poetry collection, Blackbird Singing at DuskHere.
Book a place on my September zoom workshop Finding Your Self in the Landscape Here
Book a place on my October in person Grimshaw writing workshop at Scarborough art gallery here.
Book a place on my upcoming Verve Poetry Workshop here.
Read about what’s coming up for paid subscribers here.
Come see me at Whitby Lit. Fest here
Up in the dark, into the kitchen, under-cabinet lights only. The first thing I do is open the back door to let Frida the cat out and I step out beside her to see what the day is bringing with it. Cool, autumnal air. Dewy, grassy, mulch. The crows and the jackdaws streaming over the sky to their trees, arguing on the roof tops. The east begins to lighten. I leave the door open and the air seeping into the kitchen while I set the coffee going. I do the exercises that the rheumatologist has advised, moving my bones in their sockets, teasing out tendons, rocking the pain in my feet away until I am ready to take on my sedentary day. Then the cat fed, then the coffee poured, then the laptop open and the bright moon of the page I left yesterday pulling me back into the year 1586. I have a couple of self conscious false starts before I can get my main character’s voice back, and the voice of the book, the narrator, myself. Like playing a theremin, feeling for the strings that can’t be seen, slitting the air open to reveal the story again.
This is the routine right now, while I try to hit a deadline I promised my agent months ago. I have a week in which I can devote three full days to writing this week, the first time this has happened in a while because my time has been taken up with running workshops, mentoring, ensuring I have some funds in the bank now that the advance I received for The Ghost Lake has completely run out.
The problem with being a full time writer is that so little of your time goes on writing. This week, is probably the last I’ll have an extended chunk of writing hours for a while because we, my family, have found out that my mum is very poorly again. Everything is about to change again and between making money to pay the bills and caring for my mum, writing time is going to be in thin slivers of dark mornings and dark evenings and sitting in the car outside the oncology hospital, laptop on knee.