Dear all,
This may not sound like a problem but…it
hit 30 degrees this week and the FIFA World Cup has started.
Boo hoo for me,
right! What a disaster! What a terrible turn of events! Please don’t…no stop,
you’ll have me going in a minute…stop it, turn those tears off straight away!
Okay, so I run
the risk of sounding like a real **** here but I have genuine points to make so
bear with me.
Point
1 – The Heat
For the first time since I have been away I
felt too hot to do anything. This wasn’t because I was sunbathing too long, or
had spent too much time outside walking or had been to the gym, etc. It
was simply that the heat was too much for me.
There have been
several occasions this year when I have been too tired to do anything because
of the heat but it has always been compounded by something I had previously
done such as the previously mentioned activities. Add to that the everyday
tasks like shopping, cleaning the apartment and going to Spanish lessons (more
on that later) it’s amazing how quickly time can pass and how tired you can get
before sitting down to attempt any writing.
This week was
different. I felt fine but it was the heat that got to me pure and simple. As I
was sitting on my couch feeling guilty as hell and totally pathetic at not
being able to get up, two thoughts came to mind.
The first was,
how the hell am I going to cope in July and August when it can sometimes get to
40? I mean seriously, if the locals here complain about how impossibly hot it
can get what is a freckly post ginger (bald) south Londoner supposed to do? I
could be in trouble.
The second
thought was…how on Earth do people ever get any work done! I mean how do they
simply go about their business when it is so hot (well actually, if I’m being
honest the second thought was along the lines of, ‘well this heat is going to
help me lose weight, everywhere I go is like a sauna’…but enough of my
anxieties).
For reasons
unknown a particular memory popped into my head. It was a summer’s day in the early 00s or possibly even the
late 90s. I was working in a demanding and stressful (at the time it was stressful,
I was only 18 or so…) open plan office
environment. Whether it was a heat-wave summer or just a crazy out of the blue
hot day I can’t remember but either way it was extreme for London. The office I
was in had a very strict dress code, a suit and tie was standard but you had to
ensure your shoes were shined, your top button was fixed, you were clean-shaven
and all that old school city type stuff. So taking into account we were all
layered to the nines, on this specific day the place was so hot the suspended
ceiling was practically melting onto our heads. It was just unbelievably hot,
the office wasn’t especially small either. It was a very decent sized space
even for the fifty plus people who were there. Without saying exactly where it
was we were right in the middle of the west end shopping area of central
London, looking out of the windows shoppers would be passing in a constant
stream below, and there was this incredible sense of endurance from them, it
was obvious they were seconds from passing out but deals and sales wait for no
person and I think the pavement would have had to melt into quicksand before
they stopped browsing. Anyway, sorry I do go on I know, the memory was about
how we were all just totally unable to cope in the heat. First of all
permission was given to us by the bosses (just saying that phrase makes me want
to vomit now) to take our ties off, so immediately they were ripped off and
shoved in drawers, top buttons were undone…and by a magical process of
disrupted routine all we then wanted to do was rush to the nearest pub and go
for a beer…and I know for certain that that would have been played out across
offices across the land.
I can only speak
for London, no doubt it is the same across the world, but let me speak as if
London is the centre of the Universe for a moment (it isn’t of course, my
actual home town in the south east of London is, but let’s not quibble).
We are so
desperate to have sun that when we get it we just want to bask in it…but we can’t
because we all have to work so we look enviously outside at all the folk
(tourists, employed staff on ‘meetings’ and rich people) who are able to enjoy
it and long to be in their position…anyway, I remember feeling so hot I
could not think straight, everywhere that had sweat pores was sweating. It was
not yet 3pm in the afternoon and I was already scared of the train journey home
later in the evening, which was bound to be like stepping into a pre-heated
oven trying to find the least moist space which may or may not involve a bit of
Twister style positioning. The last
thing I wanted to do was work, the last thing I wanted to do was speak to
anyone…all I wanted to do was find my mates and have a beer, preferably by the
Thames, preferably in the direct sun not the shade, preferably near a park, preferably
near to my home, preferably anywhere away from the bloody office.
I really
remember that afternoon (there must have been plenty like them over the years)
and everything it represented. For instance, I would plan a marathon-esq
multi-transportation multi-change route requiring taxis and helicopter rides
before daring to go into the Tube, I mean no chance, I would step into a
station being hardly able to breathe as it was, I would step out the other side
so wet it would look like someone had thrown a comedy bucket of
water over me, stinking of body odour (mine and the five stranger’s that I had
been forced closer to than some lovers) stressed to Michael Douglas Falling
Down level…the Tube was just not on the cards.
Now imagine that
was every day! From early June to late August the same heat. I just find it
hard to imagine that the same levels of intense hard work and dedication would
have been delivered. I don’t want to make some ridiculous claim that London
only works so hard because it is cold most of the time…but it certainly doesn’t
do any harm does it. I think back to my studies, would I really have stayed in
the library day after day when the park was so close by…would I really have stayed
late in the office so often instead of legging it to a Covent Garden boozer
with a balcony? You get the idea.
So here I am, on
my own, no boss, no dress code, no start time deadline, no Tube, no one telling
me what to do in effect and within just one week of the temperature rising I
have totally slacked from my daily routine! Madre mia! I really need to address my discipline.
I’m exaggerating the problem for
effect I know, of course people adapt to their climates and carry on with life
as normal. What people tend to do here is make sure all the tasks and chores
are completed early, so for instance if they need to go the bank or to the
shops, etc. it is the thing they do first at 8am or 9am before the temperature
starts to increase. People always find a way. However, what has really struck
me is this:
Point
2 – Writing is a full time job
Understatement of the year there.
No matter where
you are, you will not get the amount of words down you want unless you put the
hours in, so you really need to consider what your environment is and how it
effects you. I have the option wherever I am to find a library and shut myself
off from the word to write for eight hours a day. It could be London rain or
Spanish sun outside, it wouldn’t matter.
Then consider
this, what sort of life do you want? What’s more, do you have a choice? What I
mean by that is I am enjoying a year away from home in a hot climate, but I’m
sacrificing everything I have to do it, but the factor that always remains is
that I want to write. So whether it can be put down to just having an
experience, an adventure or whatever, at the root of it is the fact that I have
chosen to write for the rest of my life whether it pays or not. So I shouldn't really be asking myself do I have to force myself to write, I should be asking myself, why am I not writing.
I didn’t
understand I had that option when I was 18 and rushing into work to spend a
depressing 10 or 12 hours in an overheated office. It’s because I didn’t know
what sacrifice was, I thought that I could have everything I wanted, that was
drilled into me (possibly subconsciously, it was never actively taught I
accept) from school. Work hard and you will get everything you want. Well that
isn’t true. You have to pick very carefully the options you take and most of
the time you will get it wrong. Those who are lucky (and I don’t mean without
merit, you can deserve it and still call it luck all things considered) enough
to find their place in life early then great, I think that is fantastic and
there is a discussion to be had about youthful expectations and expectations on
youths another time.
.
What it comes
down to is that you need to force yourself to write, no matter where you are,
who you are with and what obstacles are in the way. Not an hour here and there, it needs to be a significant, or the major, portion of your entire day. Taking family to one side, solitude can be
wherever you need it to be, I realise now I didn’t leave everything and come to
Spain in order to write. I came in order to find out if writing is what I
wanted to do, to give me the time to be alone and really think about my life.
So I can feel confident in saying – and this may well apply to most things in
life - it is only upon reaching the point where you realise you want to write, I mean really really really want to write and
that it is the life you really really really
want that you understand the importance of forcing yourself to write. I’m
sure we have all got examples of people who work ferociously hard to achieve
their dreams, be it famous examples such as Stephen King writing in between his
three jobs during the early hours of the day, or J.K Rowling surviving as a
single mother and scribbling in her local café, or whether it’s the people we
know privately who work so damn hard under the most testing of circumstances. I
am in awe of most people I know because they work very hard and they have so
many more responsibilities that I do. They provide
for others, which is something I am yet to fully comprehend. What I can
comprehend now however, at the age of 34 and if I am being honest, for the
first time is the following statement from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sorry that I
couldn’t find the original program, I did look, we will have to make do with an
excerpt. Now that I have given up on everything else and am willing to
sacrifice myself totally to focus on my work this doesn’t sound so…well I’m not
sure exactly what it sounded like, but you may know what I mean when I say that
it gets annoying when we only see people who have ‘made it’, are famous, are
rich, are successful, are infamous, etc. saying the sort of thing that we only
associate with people who no longer have to worry say…I haven’t believed that
for a long time now but I still know people who do, and are convinced of it.
For me, I’m happy to say that as a nobody, I can still understand the very
simple expression of desire: Please watch between 2:18 and 2:40:
So you know what, I’m going to watch the
World Cup when I can (LIKE NOW!), I’m going to get out in the sun when I can, I’m going to
drink too much, I’m going to embarrass myself trying to speak Spanish to fed up
locals, and I’m going to enjoy the whole experience of being in Spain because I
know this is only going to last a little while. I am not going to spend it
inside a library because I know that I am going to write for the rest of my
life and soon enough that will be my routine, I also know that I need to enjoy the life I have while I have it. You
have to maximize the opportunities you get or create. (And to defend myself a little, there are days I work very hard, I'm not admitting to being a slacker here!)
So I firmly
believe that I will never achieve what I want to achieve until I treat writing
as a full time job but I am not ready to do that just yet. There is a big difference between writing four hours a day and writing eight or ten hours a day. I know I will have
to soon, and I also know that it will be devilishly tough going because to
anyone out there who is not interested in writing, I can assure you it is a
painful process full of anguish, self doubt and torment (but is has some good
sides too J) and until you crack the way you need your life to be as a writer
it can feel like you are just as lost as you were when you got your first job
at 16 and had to figure out how to work the photocopier…
 |
| http://www.readersintheknow.com |
Point
3 – Spanish Language
I’m going to keep this quick as I think it
is a blog post in its own right. The exploration of learning another language
has been a fascinating process for me because I will tell you one specific
thing that is related to this topic. When we do things that do not involve
putting actual words on paper it can still be helping you to write. This is
because life is an education and if we are the type of writer that wants to
express our reality then inspiration and knowledge and experience can come
from all manner of places that eventually will translate into your written words.
This
last point is how forcing myself to take time out to look at the Spanish
textbooks is actually helping me write my stories. This is because you have to
examine what you want to say and how you want to express it. Learning another
language shows up all the lazy traits you have in your own language, identifies
all the frustrations you have in your command of vocabulary, and if you are
working hard to examine your control of language then surely that can only help
when examining your skills as a storyteller, no matter in which language…or is
it in what language?
Well, I rushed that last paragraph but it will be the topic of my next blog post so I will explain myself better then.
Take care you lovely people....the game is about to start!! COME ON
ENGLAND!!
***
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