My writing day / Nicola Barker / ‘Each novel has its own specially designed notebook. These are sacred objects to me’

MY WRITING DAY

Nicola Barker: ‘Each novel has its own specially designed notebook. These are sacred objects to me’

The novelist on why she loves marker pens, Post-it notes and notebooks – and why she is a ‘clucky, agenda-driven mother hen’

Nicola Barker

Saturday 18 November 2017 10.00 GMT

I

work on an old apple laptop that isn’t online – it’s heavy and the keyboard is worn. It tells you if a word is spelled incorrectly (in American English so all my Ss need to be Zs or the page is covered in irritable red marks) but it doesn’t suggest alternatives. Every so often a key locks and you’ll look down at the screen and see or It also likes to impose random gaps and spaces on to the text (in geometric boxes) that are impossible to remove so you have to copy the narrative and open a new document. When I completed my last book, H(a)ppy, I suspected that I’d need a new laptop and I bought one and began working on it but this one was online. And it was way more portable. So I began slouching on the sofa (instead of sitting at my desk) and working whenever I felt the urge.

The text seemed different, though. I’m not sure how or why. So I’m back to using my old laptop again and constantly muttering about its crappiness. Everything is slow and irritating. Even the clock is wrong. Part of me suspects that I enjoy an element of adversity – even welcome it. You only truly appreciate the stuff you battle for.

I don’t work regular hours. I think a lot – a lot – but not very coherently. And I interrupt bigger novels with small ones, in cycles, then return to the big ones afterwards. Little novels are manic and joyful and generally take around six to eight months to complete. Big ones are research-heavy, take years and are more challenging and complex. When I am writing a big novel my desk is covered in dozens of half-read books. Sometimes I take notes in jotters but I rarely return to them. Often I scribble in the text. I am very disrespectful. I like mini Post-its in different colours. When I wrote The Cauliflower I had about 50 books scattered around me at all times, each one with 40 or more Post-its poking out. The texts will generally be frantically underlined (I also draw little pointy fingers and scribble three stars if something is VERY IMPORTANT. There will be much NB-ing). With that novel I needed to remember where certain facts/aphorisms/biographical anecdotes were. Some days I would spend six or seven hours searching for something and not manage to locate it. That was soul destroying.

Big novels are dull and I find it hard to keep the plot in my head so never have days off when I am fully immersed. I read and reread endlessly, making minute changes. I have to watch my moods. If I am slightly depressed I have to stop work altogether because I become destructive. When I write it’s in three dimensions – I imagine a character in a scene and it’s as if a little bubble extends in front of me. The space of the scene is there. It’s kind of like when I was a kid and put my dolls into shoe-box houses and made them talk to each other. I always read the text out loud. Rhythm is vital.

Each novel has its own specially designed and decorated notebook. These are sacred objects to me. They will be full of letters and tickets and articles from magazines. Prayer cards. Stickers. The covers are usually ornate and preserved with sticky-back plastic. I love marker pens – circling things with them, using them for emphasis. When I feel defeated I return to the notebook and it always reassures me. There will often be ideas there that I have completely forgotten about.

Each novel has its own font. I see my books on a screen and always have. This is because I feel a sense of immense space and speed behind the screen and below the screen and a novel is always an infinite number of versions of itself. It’s like I keep that sense of possibility alive while the text is on screen. I hate looking at the printed version. My perfectionism loathes the idea of something being complete – being solid. A novel dies to me when it leaves the screen and I instantly lose all interest in it.

Every novel is different. They are like relationships. They are relationships. Some are effortless and others are fraught. I always try to have fun, though, and to stay innocent. I could never fully engage with a character if I didn’t love them. I am a clucky, agenda-driven mother hen. And I write about what I don’t know. I am constantly learning and un-learning. I don’t ask my publisher for advances and I am not particularly ambitious – thank God. My aspirations are laughably cock-eyed and appropriately modest.

THE GUARDIAN