February 2006

Thank God January is over. It is a punishing month, what with freezing weather, no more Christmas pudding to eat, tax to pay, and in my case too many piles of administration. Why is there always someone in an office chasing my tail? If that person is YOU, please remember that you are paid to send out bothersome emails but no one is paying me to answer them.

So, no, I don’t want to appear on any talk shows, quiz shows, radio programmes, diet and de-tox telly, or give any opinions or comments about anything. I have stopped answering my phone and my emails because I realise that everything about modern life is designed to be a waste of time.

This is particularly maddening when I all I want to do is sit down and write my new book – but how old-fashioned is that? Writers need not write books anymore; we can spend our time at conferences, teaching creative writing courses, making entertaining speeches, visiting festivals, chatting on the web to reader’s groups, answering questions for students who can’t be arsed to do any work, and so it goes on.

Who has told students that it is a good idea to contact the writer of the book they are supposed to be thinking about? I don’t believe in any of that French Theory stuff about the death of the author, (at least not until it happens to me personally at around age 94), but neither can I accept that my role in life is to act as my own lit crit.

If there are any students unfortunate enough to be reading this column, hear this; I am not the oracle. Once a book lives in the world it lives on its own or not at all. Maybe the problem is that kids live so long with their parents these days, that they assume books live with their writers in much the same way.

But it is not so. The books move out. The writer moves on.

I have begun my new book and I am very excited by it, because it’s a different approach for me. I want to dive down and not come up for air, and that is what the creative process needs. What is difficult are the endless interruptions – the rips and breaks in the unwinding skein of concentration. Of course I can be robust, of course I can keep a deep meditation running even in the face of a tax return, but it is tiring, and it feels wrong. I find myself in the absurd position of needing to turn everything off and hide in the hills. It feels extreme, but we live in an extreme world. We live in a noisy and aggressive world. Peace and quiet and long stretches of time have to be fought for. I am fighting, but that takes energy too.

Never mind, the book is real and clear, and when I go there I feel steady and calm. There is such a difference between right and left brain rhythms, though I find that wearyingly left brain people will not accept that there is any other way to experience life and
being, except in their way, which is about as profound as figuring out how to work the washing machine.

I am a great fan of washing machines, but I am a fan of dreaming and contemplation too.  Anyway, life is not a giant washing machine, and there is much more to be done than endlessly swinging through the cycles.

I shall stop worrying about this now, and tell you have I fare in February in my Zen attempt at avoiding the crap.

So here’s the big question of the month – shall I wear a hat when I go and get my OBE from the Queen on Feb 24th?

I am not tall, and a hat makes me look like a mushroom, but apparently, hats are the thing for wearing at the palace.

I shall get a nice digital photo taken and you can see the result for yourselves in March.

It is all very well for my friend Saffron Burrows, recently voted the 33rd most beautiful woman in the world. She could go to the palace in her school pyjamas and be the best- dressed person there.

Alas, I will need help from a couple of posh shops and a few good friends – and it’s no good asking Saff because she is also 6 feet tall, and could make a mini-skirt out of whatever I will have to chop off the bottom of whatever it is, god help me, that I end up wearing. But I do not want to look like a mushroom or a piece of fruit, so my costume will not be orange.

Meanwhile, to all those of you who have visited Verde’s – thank you very much. The shop is going well, and we are still trying hard with our vegetables. A few of my books will be for sale in the shop from time to time – at present we have signed copies of WEIGHT and the special edition of TWO STORIES hand published by the Hay Festival.

I love books. I love everything about books. But as you will see if you read the two pieces published in the London Times last month, it is not simple anymore, either for books, writers, or independent bookshops. As books become a commodity like everything else, we are getting into trouble. At least France has their Exception Cultural, but then they have 400 different kinds of cheese too.
  
Three cheers for Carol Ann Duffy, whose fabulous collection of poems, RAPTURE, won the TS ELIOT prize. Did I not tell you it was marvellous? Well, if you aint got it yet, get in now. Other site recommendations have been Ali Smith, The Accidental, shortlisted for the Booker and the Whitbread, and Hilary Spurling’s two volume biography of MATTISE, which won the £30,000 Whitbread Prize in January.

Sometimes the right thing happens. On the that cheerful note, I will say goodbye until March.

PS – TANGLEWRECK – my book for older children will be published on July 3rd in the UK. Prior to that I will be at Hay on Wye, and I shall be at the Edinburgh Festival this year. All dates will be posted on the site when they are  fixed.