My writing day / Hilary Mantel / I get up in the dark like a medieval monk

Hilary Mantel
Illustration by Alan Vest

My writing day: Hilary Mantel

‘Some days I have no idea what I’ve written till I read it back. It’s a life with shocks built in’

"I used to be a late starter, but now I get up in the dark like a medieval monk, commit unmediated scribble to a notebook, and go back to bed about six, hoping to sleep for another two hours and to wake slowly and in silence."

Hilary Mantel
Saturday 16 April 2016 10.00 BST

S

ome writers claim to extrude a book at an even rate like toothpaste from a tube, or to build a story like a wall, so many feet per day. They sit at their desk and knock off their word quota, then frisk into their leisured evening, preening themselves.

This is so alien to me that it might be another trade entirely. Writing lectures or reviews – any kind of non-fiction – seems to me a job like any job: allocate your time, marshall your resources, just get on with it. But fiction makes me the servant of a process that has no clear beginning and end or method of measuring achievement. I don’t write in sequence. I may have a dozen versions of a single scene. I might spend a week threading an image through a story, but moving the narrative not an inch. A book grows according to a subtle and deep-laid plan. At the end, I see what the plan was.

Hilary Mantel

I used to be a late starter, but now I get up in the dark like a medieval monk, commit unmediated scribble to a notebook, and go back to bed about six, hoping to sleep for another two hours and to wake slowly and in silence. Random noise, voices in other rooms, get me off to a savage, disorderly start, but if I am left in peace to reach for a pen, I feel through my fingertips what sort of day it is. Days of easy flow generate thousands of words across half a dozen projects – and perhaps new projects. Flow is like a mad party – it goes on till all hours and somebody must clear up afterwards. Stop-start days are not always shorter, are self-conscious and anxiety-ridden, and later turn out to have been productive and useful. I judge in retrospect. On flow days, I have no idea what I’ve written till I read it back. It’s a life with shocks built in.

I don’t mind whether I write by hand or on a keyboard. I don’t mind anything, as long as I’ve woken up calmly in my own time. I’m a long thinker and a fast writer, so most days I don’t spend much time at my desk. I concentrate well. I’m not tempted by the internet. If I’m redrafting, fine-tuning, I print the text and take it away to read it on paper. But if I’m writing straight on to the screen, I tense up till my body locks into a struggling knot. I have to go and stand in a hot shower to unfreeze. I also stand in the shower if I get stuck. I am the cleanest person I know.

I am fuelled by tea. I don’t want to break to eat. But after an intense bout of work I might fall asleep, which gets me fit for the next bout. I stop for the day when some inner falling-away says, that’s all there is. It feels like a page turning inside – the next page is empty. Nothing is left then but to go to bed and wait for dreams and for the next day.

About half my working year is like this. The rest involves talking, travelling, producing a public persona – but still with odd hours, and a constant output of ideas. The most frequent question writers are asked is some variant on, “Do you write every day, or do you just wait for inspiration to strike?” I want to snarl, “Of course I write every day, what do you think I am, some kind of hobbyist?” But I understand the question is really about the central mystery – what is inspiration? Eternal vigilance, in my opinion. Being on the watch for your material, day or night, asleep or awake.

THE GUARDIAN

My writing day 

2016

001 Hilary Mantel / I get up in the dark like a medieval monk

002 Anne Enright / I love this feeling

003 Jacqueline Wilson /

004 Ian Rankin / Solitude, cofee, music

005 William Boyd / ‘I can only manage three hours’ writing before fatigue sets in’

006

007

0l08

009

010

011

012

013

014

015 AL Kennedy / ‘As payments plummet, I’m back on the road as much as I was when I started out’ 

016

017

018

019

020

021

022

023

024

025

026

027

028

029

030

031

032

033

034

035

036

037

038

039 Emma Donoghue / ‘I have only from 8.30am to 3.30pm to work. It’s a very healthy discipline’

040 Tessa Hadley / ‘Some of my best ideas come in the bath’

041

042

043

044

045

046 Susan Hill / ‘Can I be a serious writer, keeping such casual hours?’

047

048

049

050

051

052

053

054

055

056

2017

057 Hari Kunzru / ‘Espresso is all that stands between us and creative defeat’
058 Geoff Dyer / ‘At the first sign of sleepiness I commit absolutely to a nap … I lie down and force myself’

059  Hisham Matar / ‘If I wake up at an early hour and write 500 words each day I will, in time, have a book’

060

061

062

063

064 Sarah Hall / ‘Everything is subject to the priorities of single parenting'

065

066

067

068

069

070

071

072

073 Penelope Lively / One of the pleasures

074 Fiona Mozley / I’m on the Man Booker shortlist and top of my fantasy football league

075 Shaun Bythell / The bestselling subject in my shop? Railway books

076 Frances Hardinge / ‘I can try axe-throwing or canoeing and it could be research’

077 Andrew Michael Hurley: ‘​Some days I don’t look up until my wife texts to tell me to ea​t’

078 Yaa Gyasi / ‘I write a sentence. I delete it. I wonder if it’s too early for lunch’

079 David Hare / ‘For every hour you write a screenplay, you spend 10 defending it’

080 Antonia Fraser / ‘I was forced to learn typing as a punishment for being uppish’

081 Nicola Barker / Each novel has

082 Judith Kerr / I'm still surprised

083

084

085 

086 Julie Myerson / I'm a solipsistic maniac

2018

087 Jon McGregor / ‘I have never been asked how I juggle writing and fatherhood’

088 Siddhartha Mukherjee / Two hours writing