We’re coming into the summer at last and the weather even seems to have sorted itself out. I always get restless during this time however. I lose my writing rhythm when I go on holiday, and then the kids are off school and I feel obliged to acknowledge their existence every now and then. I’m at the end of a major project now so I’m scraping around for a foothold on something new that might take me up to another level. At times like this I like to read a lot and re-read too, books and writers that I haven’t read in a while. I always go back to Philip Roth and lately I’ve been re-reading Kundera’s Art of the Novel. I’m reading and thinking I suppose, seeing how I can frame the stories I have inside me in such a way that they might hold my attention while I’m writing them and hopefully capture the imaginations of future readers.
I used to fear reading when I was in the throes of writing, afraid that I might steal too readily from other writers, but now I realise that reading good writing doesn’t invite imititation as much as it calls on the careful reader to think more. Not just about story or the mechanics of plot, but the use of language and image and metaphor, and perhaps most importantly the form or structure. The key to the success (I mean this artisticallt and intellectually) of many books is the form in which the story is framed.
I do like holidays for the reading time it affords. But I always get a yen to write something even if I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. It’s one of the few occasions these days when I go back to the blank sheet of paper and the chewed pen. I write 95% straight to the laptop these days. I’m not sure if it’s the right way to proceed always. Sometimes I think it’s too easy to delete as you go on a PC and every day you sit down you start by unpicking the work of the day before. That can be soul-destroying when you’re working on something as big and unwieldy as a novel.
So this summer I’m going to read lots, and you should too. New novels, like Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s The Closet of Savage Mementos (New Island) and old one’s too like Roth’s Goodbye Columbus, and plenty of poetry of course. There are so many good new journals out there now showcasing the work of new and established writers like The Poetry Bus, Gorse and The Honest Ulsterman. Issue 2 of the Ulsterman is out now and there’s tons of great stuff in it (and I’m not just saying that because I have a poem in it). Have a look at Gorse’s website too; there’s a great interview on their blog with Rob Doyle ahead of the publication of his first novel Here Are the Young Men (Lilliput Press).
Happy reading – and writing!
