What gets you going?

The UK newspaper The Guardian had an interesting article in its Weekend Magazine on Saturday. The article is called Works Like A Charm and in it “writers reveal what gets the creative juices going”. And it makes fascinating reading.

For Jonathan Franzen, it’s a squeaky chair. For David Guterson, it’s driving (that sounds potentially a little dangerous to me – if I got absorbed in one of my more emotional scenes while driving, I can’t imagine where I’d end up – or even if I’d end up anywhere but in the hospital! Jay McInerney likes to hold a half million years axe in his hand – I can see that working. Just think of all the stories that piece of stone has seen in all its 500,000 years on this planet. Jane Smiley likes hot water – I can relate to that too – but a shower not a bath. There’s something about the activity of a shower – the rush of the water, down on to your head, that stimulates and gets you ready for the day. A bath slows you down, relaxes and unwinds. After a bath I’d fall asleep, not write. And Douglas Coupland likes chocolate. I’ll just bet that lots and lots of authors will relate to that. But not me. Just occasionally, if I’m rushing to a deadline, and I need the boost, and if we have any chocolate in the house, (ie if the BM hasn’t eaten every last scrap of it) I’ll snaffle some and chomp it down. But then it’s wasted really because I don’t even taste it – just get it into my system fast.

These ideas are all taken from a book called How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors edited by Dan Crowe and it sounds like a great read, especially if you’re one of those nosy types- like me - who just loves to know how other authors do it – where they work, what hours they put in, what gets them going, what music they like to listen to – if they like to listen to anything. I’ve become so enamoured of silence that I can just about tolerate the cats’ purrs. Just.

Of course this made me think about my own writing life and what gets me creating – and of all of these writers, I think I’d have the most connection with David Guterson - though it would be a fiendishly dangerous partnership. You see, I find that long journeys – cars, trains, plane – are what start my imaginative juices flowing. But only if I’m a passenger.

I know this all started when I was a child. Way back in those prehistoric days when my father used to drive us - as an example – over the Pennines from Yorkshire to Lancashire and then on to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester or perhaps head in the other direction as I did at Easter and go to Scarborough. Long journeys crammed into the back seat of the car with at least two, possibly three of my sisters alongside me. There was no car radio, no ipod to listen to. Reading books made me sick – anything at all made my sister Anne sick - so I needed distractions. I would sit by the window and stare out of it. In the daytime I could watch the streets and houses, the cars and the people go by. In the day time we could play ‘Pub Cricket’ – you watch for a pub sign on your side of the road. If it’s the Queen Mary, you earn 2 ‘legs’ – 2 runs for your team – if it’s the ‘Coach and Horses’ you get at least 8 ‘legs’ and there’s plenty of scope for arguing that this particular coach needs a half dozen horses to pull it. Fox and Geese was another great one. But if you get the King’s Arms or the Maypole then there were no legs, no runs and your turn was up. And the sister on the other side of the car got her go.

But that was in daylight. Often, after a long day out, we would head home in the darkness. And the road over the Pennines, before the motorway was built, was pitch black. No street lights, barely a sign of habitation, or road markings. A few stray sheep that might stupidly wander on to the road from grazing on the moorland – and our car. So I would stare out of the window into the darkness – and make up stories in my head. In my imagination I was an escaping princess – or a kidnapped heroine – and in the car were not my sisters and parents but whoever I wanted to people my imaginary world with. Heroic saviours, dangerous kidnappers, evil stepmothers, loyal servants . . . and out there – beyond the darkness, perhaps behind me, hunting us down, or coming to save me – it depended on the story I was telling myself – were . . . well behind me was anyone and everyone I could possibly imagine. The story could grow and develop and become as big as I wanted – or it could stay small and intimate and just within the darkness of the car.

And I still do that. Put me in the passenger seat of a car – on the way to Scarborough or wherever - and once I’m sure that I have all the travel documents I need and that the BM knows the way – and I’ll drift – off into an imaginary world where anything is possible. I’ve created the seeds of so may of my stories this way. And I always have a pen and note pad with me ready to note down the inspiration when it strikes. I still remember vividly exactly where in Lincolnshire I was when the line ‘So you’d better tell me who you are because one thing’s for certain, you’re definitely not my wife,’ came into my head. And I had to scribble it down fast before I lost it – and then I had to find a story in which to fit it. And the scenes to lead up to it. (Chase The Dawn if you’re interested.)

So that’s one thing that works for me. Lying down with my eyes closed does too. It must be the darkness and me alone with my imagination that does it. I let ideas steep in my mind just as I’m falling asleep and can just about guarantee that when I wake up I’m ready to go and the ideas are there.

I’m heading for London on Wednesday. We’re going to the RNA Awards lunch at the Savoy. So I’m expecting to sit and daydream as I watch the countryside go by. And I really hope I’ll come up with a wonderful new idea. Because I’ll be meeting my editor at the Savoy and I’ll just bet that one of her very first questions will be ‘And what’s your next book going to be about.’
So – the writers out the, reading this – what gets you going ? What starts the ideas flowing? I’m always ready to learn a good tip.