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I have, in my professional life, met numberless writers who seemed paralysed by their own desire to write, who had intelligent and reasonable excuses for not starting, not committing, not getting on with it, who could trump any arguments or suggestions I might make towards putting anything on paper. It is nice to win arguments, but not if it means you deny yourself the chance to do something beautiful and intensely alive. Win or lose, you have to be in the game to play it and writing is a game which can deepen and enrich any players experience, moment by moment. We can all feel were not really up to it on any given day – and sometimes were right, we should take a break. But not writing – that would be like not speaking, not touching, not kissing. Pauses are probably unavoidable, but perhaps use yours, enjoy them, shorten them until you can find their edge. We might look at it like this – kissing is good, but kissing after five or 10 seconds of well-informed waiting – that can be better. Onwards.

via Off-putting behaviour | AL Kennedy | Books | guardian.co.uk.

 

I am writing what for lack of a better word I call memoirs. I don’t know quite why I started writing them this spring, but I hurry to create the proper mental atmosphere to keep this process going. My writing workshop teacher recommends finding a book that is of the same sort that you yourself want to write, and using it as a sort of guide, a way of seeing how someone else has tackled your same subject, your same problems.

I am writing about my family and my early life. The book that immediately came to me to use as the guide is Truman Capote‘s In Cold Blood. The music that I want to listen to while I write is Beethoven’s Fifth piano concerto — I don’t care who the orchestra is, but the pianist must be Rudolf Serkin.

I wish I knew what this says about my subconscious, but if I did know, it would no longer be subconscious. I should just leave it at that.