{"id":777,"date":"2010-08-13T15:30:16","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T15:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=777"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:12:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:12:26","slug":"martin-figura-talks-to-ink-sweat-and-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/martin-figura-talks-to-ink-sweat-and-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Figura talks to Ink Sweat and Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine Questions<\/span>

In this new series Ink Sweat & Tears talks to practicing writers about their process and craft.<\/span>


1. Where do you write?<\/span> (do you have an office, room, bus or train journey that you find yourself and your writing? etc)<\/span>

Office in the attic, amongst the chaos and distractions \u2013 with facebook and email switched off if I\u2019m being good.<\/span>

2. How do you write?<\/span> (into a notebook or straight onto a computer? etc)<\/span>

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.<\/span>

3. Roughly how much time do you spend each week on creative writing related activities?<\/span> (writing, editing, correspondence & submissions \u2013 give a daily average if possible)<\/span>

15 hours \u2013 more when I get the chance.  Whenever I can manage, 5 mornings running.<\/span>

4. What time of day do you usually write?<\/span>

Mornings \u2013 hardly ever any other time.<\/span>

5. Do you set yourself a daily target for writing?<\/span>

No \u2013 that would just quantify my lack of application. <\/span>

6. What does it feel like to write? <\/span>

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.<\/span>

7. Are there any stimuli that will usually trigger you into writing?<\/span>

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\u2019m in the zone and everything feeds it even when I\u2019m not actually writing.  It could be ironing or washing up or Come Dine With Me<\/span>….but I\u2019m in the zone.<\/span>

8. Do you work in silence or have background noise? If you do have sounds, what are you listening to now?<\/span>

Only a whispering nagging doubt.  Right now \u2013 Radcliffe and Marconi on <\/span>Listen Again<\/span>, on Headphones because my wife is ACTUALLY WRITING 3 feet away and needs quiet \u2013 and its Bob Dylan singing <\/span>Lay Lady Lay.<\/span>

9. What are you working on now?<\/span>

A pamphlet of funny poems for <\/span>Nasty Little Press<\/span><\/a> and publicity etc for performance of my Apples and Snakes<\/a> 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.  <\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/span>Martin Figura<\/span> won the Poetry Society\u2019s Hamish Canham Prize in 2010.  He is a based in Norwich, is Chair of <\/span>Caf\u00e9 Writers<\/a> and also a freelance photographer.  His new collection is <\/span>Whistle<\/span><\/a> from Arrowhead Press<\/span>. He has
\nperformed in New York, Toronto and across the UK as a member of the Joy
\nof 6 and in his own right. <\/span>More Words for
\n Toilet<\/span> will appear from Nasty Little Press in November 2010.  <\/span>

<\/font>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine QuestionsIn 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 \u2013 with facebook and email switched off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23868,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/23868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}