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| ‘Writing a novel is like hacking at the rock face’ … Penelope Lively. Illustration: Alan Vest |
Penelope Lively: ‘One of the pleasures of old age is the thought that I shall never see Heathrow again’
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Not that my working days were always like that. There were many other commitments: organisations to which I gave time, much travelling for bookish reasons. The desk days were jealously guarded. Looking at old diaries, I see that I am always complaining that I can’t get to the book that I am writing – too many other demands. One year, I left Heathrow 12 times. Well, no more of that. One of the pleasures of old age is the thought that I shall never see Heathrow again.
The writing day now is likely to be a couple of hours in the afternoon. The capacity for sustained concentration has gone. That said, ideas – a line or two, a note to myself for future reference – can pop up throughout the day, requiring quick resort to the Work in Progress file. My writing life has been like this for several years, the two hours sometimes stretching to another hour or two at some other point in the day, but are junked altogether if I simply can’t get on or more pressing matters have arisen. Rather surprisingly, I have managed a couple of books like this – a collection of short stories and, recently, a non‑fiction reflection on gardening. So, the late life shorter bursts of activity have been almost as productive as the days in the past that were dedicated to the desk, the novel-writing days.
Writing a novel is like hacking at the rock face. Somewhere within the daunting but inviting mass of the general idea that you have had, the inspiration, is the careful, sculptured construction of the finished narrative. Two or three years of hacking, usually, for me. That burst of short stories was unexpected; I had not been writing stories for nearly 20 years, I thought they had left me, then they came back, not exactly flooding, but creeping up with stealth – the hint of a new one, not a rock face to hack at, but a suggestion to consider and manipulate.
In fact, the desk was never a necessity. I could write anywhere; still can. In the too-busy years, I wrote in airports, in hotel rooms. Some of my most productive writing time has been spent in a Somerset garden, with people coming up to chat every now and then, which is fine – listen, respond, go on writing. I write in longhand, always have done, then type up later on, which is ideal, to my mind, because that way you make all sorts of corrections and additions in the process; it is an editorial stage. And I have no fancy preferences for style of notebook or breed of pen – anything will do. At the moment I am using a turquoise notebook with PENELOPE on the front in silver lettering that my daughter gave me for Christmas; into that is going what may – or may not – turn out to be a shortish novel.
And then there is all the admin generated by a writing life. Since email, there is a blessed reduction in paper; deal with a few emails and the files on that brimming shelf are not fattened as they would have been in the ponderous pre-internet days. Admin is not, strictly speaking, part of the writing day, but it is an inevitable appendage. I am tidy by nature and I couldn’t get on with anything else if there was a stack of unanswered letters – or, today, an unchecked inbox. But it is all quicker nowadays – and more economical.
In fact, I rather appreciate the old-age writing day. It is still essential to be writing something, at some point, but the pressure is off. Now that I am done with outside commitments, pretty well, all my time is my own. Back in the too-busy days, I felt guilty if a commitment-free day was not entirely devoted to writing. None of that guilt now. If I get in two or three hours at the turquoise notebook, that is great. If I decide to get out and about, or go gardening, or socialise, that is fine. Writers have to goad themselves throughout a writing life: you are your own employer; there is no one else to see that the job gets done. Equally, the late-life writer is entitled to claim some licence: no question of packing it in; you are just accepting that you can still do it, but there is no need to feel driven. Seize those fewer fruitful hours and be satisfied.
Penelope Lively is the winner of the Charleston-Bede’s award for a Lifetime’s Excellence in short fiction.
THE GUARDIAN
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