August 14 2020
NOTES ON A WRITING LIFE | 16
Dear All,
New times demand new ways of creating, and look, we are doing it. I see my friends, other writers, musicians, actors, use the technologies that have sprung up so inventively over the last few months. Back in February, I didn’t know what Zoom even was. Facetime, Whatsapp, Crowdcast – they didn’t exist for me. But these days I watch my friends perform in their basement in upstate New York, I spend an hour talking with a poet in Quebec, I check in to watch writers far away talking on Zoom and Crowdcast, because we can’t do what we used to do, crowd in to bookstores, cinemas, theatres, cafés, concerts. It’s not the same, of course, as being there in the flesh – but I can’t help thinking, it’s a lot easier to sit in my room in front of my computer, dressed from the waist up like a TV presenter, nobody able to see that my shorts are scruffy and my feet bare, than to have to drive long-distance to readings, stay in hotels overnight, and dress from head to toe. This last week, I was interviewed about Without Her on Crowdcast for Books & Books in Key West, by the novelist Katrin Schumann, whom I know from Key West but who was actually in Boston. People showed up to listen and watch from all over the country, and we had a good time.
Yes, we’re all missing each other. We long to hang out in person, at length, to hug and breathe the same air, share food, be spontaneous. But that the technology exists for these virtual meetings does make a huge difference, and now that I’m not scared of it anymore, I welcome it.
“ I’m trying to forget that I’m usually away in Europe at this time, walking with my brothers, going on delightful trips and seeing my old friends and family. I’m pretending I’m on a writing retreat, and so is Allen. We separate for most of the day to write, and talk at meals about what we have done, or what problems have come up. He’s out in the science-fiction future, I’m mostly in the memory-rich past. We’re extraordinarily lucky, I know, to have each other and to be able to do this. ”
One of the interesting questions I was asked during that interview was – how has the pandemic affected your life as a writer? I realized that after a few weeks or even months of feeling totally at sea, all my habits and assumptions challenged and the world of writing seemingly as remote as everything else, it did not need to change much at all. I’m trying to forget that I’m usually away in Europe at this time, walking with my brothers, going on delightful trips and seeing my old friends and family. I’m pretending I’m on a writing retreat, and so is Allen. We separate for most of the day to write, and talk at meals about what we have done, or what problems have come up. He’s out in the science-fiction future, I’m mostly in the memory-rich past. We’re extraordinarily lucky, I know, to have each other and to be able to do this. But I also think back to all the years of my life when I longed for time to write, and it was rare and often even impossible to find. Teaching, other work, bringing up kids, family life, involvement of all sorts take up our time when we’re young. Now, we have time. A whole lot of it. But as I sit writing, treating it once again as a job I have to get back to, I try to remember those other times, my youthful desperation, the way I had to write at top speed to get anything done at all, the urgency and panic. I’m telling myself to slow down, take my time. I’m on a writing retreat, here in steamy Key West – no dinner parties, no social life, no obligations, no house guests, no movies that will change next week, no meetings, none of the demands, pleasant though they may be, that stop us getting on with what we most want to do – and I’m beginning to notice that it makes a difference. There are still the sunsets, though, and the dramatic clouds of August arching over us all.
Stay well –
affectionately, Ros
My next interview about Without Her, recently out in paperback from Delphinium Books, will take place on August 24. Check the website at Books & Books, Coral Gables, Miami to sign up for the event. I’ll be talking with the novelist Diana Abu-Jaber at 7 pm EST.
Also, for the month of for August, Amazon are offering the Kindle version of The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier in the US at 99 cents, and in the UK, Paris Still Life at 99 pence.