Getting Back to Work
rekindling the writing habit
I’m delighted to welcome Eleanor Anstruther to my blog today. I read her book ‘A Perfect Explanation’ earlier this year and found it a beautifully written and powerful story. Eleanor was born in London, educated at Westminster and studied History of Art at Manchester University where she was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India. She was lost and found for the next twelve years, travelling through Asia, Australia, Africa and America before finally settling down to write. She began her debut novel, ‘A Perfect Explanation’, under the mentorship of Dr. Sally Cline at Anglia Ruskin, completing it a decade later by way of Arvon, Guardian Masterclass and Festival of Writing Workshops. She lives on a farm in Surrey with her twin boys.
‘A Perfect Explanation’, nominated for the Desmond Elliott Prize, is published by Salt Books (UK), HMH (USA) & Rizzoli (Italy).
Whether it’s been an enforced summer break or one gratefully received, getting back to work requires an effort all its own. The brain has forgotten how to do it, the writing muscles have slackened, the routine and stamina need firing up all over again. I often find myself in a race to meet an end of term deadline, dragging my tattered mind off on holiday, receiving notes sometime in mid August and getting the jitters as September looms and I know I must face up to the manuscript I last saw in a haze of exhaustion last July. I write everyday of the year except for those four to six weeks of summer when I make up the time by reading, catching up on my TBR while my subconscious mulls over the novel I’m working on, that I’m not allowed to look at, that on pain of death must not be opened even for a second.
These are valuable hours, the days and months of conscious distraction; they allow for the untangling of knots that only the subconscious can do. Stephen King takes four months between each draft, alternating work so that there is always one WIP on the desk and one in the drawer - a heady feat and not one I achieve unless I’m waiting for notes - yet this period of quiet is crucial for the work. It deepens it as the headlamps of conscious focus never can. It is agonising, yet essential to leave it alone. It is the dream time, it is the mending, it is when the magic happens.
Then all at once, summer is over and I must get on with the more obvious form of writing; bum on seat, lap top open, coffee growing cold, cat in the way, staring at a paragraph for longer than is healthy, frequently wanting to cry, occasionally feeling that thrill that makes the whole circus worth it. I’ve learnt through many years experience to expect that first week to be rubbish. It will be at best stop-start and worst filled with such angst that I’ll need to give myself a talking to. It’s okay people, getting back to work is a precarious business, but the antidote is the same as that for every other day; keep the faith, you can do it, this is the writing life.
Eleanor Anstruther
@ellieanstruther
@eleanoranstruther