Nine Questions
In this new series Ink Sweat & Tears talks to practicing writers about their process and craft.
1. Where do you write? (do you have an office, room, bus or train journey that you find yourself and your writing? etc)
Office in the attic, amongst the chaos and distractions – with facebook and email switched off if I’m being good.
2. How do you write? (into a notebook or straight onto a computer? etc)
Straight onto computer, from rough notes in notebook or emails from here and there, scraps of paper, bookmarks, back of left hand, shaky memory, thin air and by staring at a blank screen very hard.
3. Roughly how much time do you spend each week on creative writing related activities? (writing, editing, correspondence & submissions – give a daily average if possible)
15 hours – more when I get the chance. Whenever I can manage, 5 mornings running.
4. What time of day do you usually write?
Mornings – hardly ever any other time.
5. Do you set yourself a daily target for writing?
No – that would just quantify my lack of application.
6. What does it feel like to write?
Necessary, mostly frustrating and desperate, occasionally thrilling and even more occasionally, even more thrilling if in the cold light of the next day what I have written is any good.
7. Are there any stimuli that will usually trigger you into writing?
Reading Poetry, going to readings and life. I try and write in 5 day blocks, or as many as I can put together, that way I’m in the zone and everything feeds it even when I’m not actually writing. It could be ironing or washing up or Come Dine With Me….but I’m in the zone.
8. Do you work in silence or have background noise? If you do have sounds, what are you listening to now?
Only a whispering nagging doubt. Right now – Radcliffe and Marconi on Listen Again, on Headphones because my wife is ACTUALLY WRITING 3 feet away and needs quiet – and its Bob Dylan singing Lay Lady Lay.
9. What are you working on now?
A pamphlet of funny poems for Nasty Little Press and publicity etc for performance of my Apples and Snakes show at the Freeword Festival. Not much new writing, just tightening up and trying to drag some crippled specimens into the mix for my editor to choose from.
*Martin Figura won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize in 2010. He is a based in Norwich, is Chair of Café Writers and also a freelance photographer. His new collection is Whistle from Arrowhead Press. He has
performed in New York, Toronto and across the UK as a member of the Joy
of 6 and in his own right. More Words for
Toilet will appear from Nasty Little Press in November 2010.