{"id":818,"date":"2010-09-16T13:04:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T13:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=818"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:12:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:12:13","slug":"what-makes-writers-tick-james-sutherland-smith-answers-ists-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/what-makes-writers-tick-james-sutherland-smith-answers-ists-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes writers tick – James Sutherland-Smith answers IS&T's questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine Questions<\/span>

<\/span><\/font>In
\nthe fourth episode of our new series, Ink Sweat & Tears talks to
\npracticing writers about their process and craft \u2013 and asks them nine
\nquestions…<\/p>\n

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

We have a converted attic in our small house where I have my books, CDs, sounds machine, computer, two writing desks facing away from each other and a couch. Sometimes if I work late into the night I sleep there as it has shower and toilet. I don\u2019t like to disturb my wife, if she goes to bed earlier.
We also have a cabin in the forest and I do a lot of writing there as I am usually completely on my own. I also have books there and I take some music with me.
Once a month I have to go to Bratislava and I often write on the train journey which takes five hours. It is one of the most beautiful journeys in Europe, at least between Presov and Trencin.<\/p>\n

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

I started writing in the 1960s before I could afford a typewriter. The first poems I had published in a magazine (Poetry and Audience) were submitted in a hand-written manuscript. <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t changed my writing habits all that much. I write with a fountain pen in black ink in a small notebook and then when something looks as though it might become a poem I write several drafts in a larger notebook until a poem has a satisfactory form. Then I copy it on to my computer and save a back up copy on a USB. Every time I copy I make small adjustments to the poem.<\/p>\n

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)<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve just had a Creative Writing course proposal accepted at the local university my time is about to change.  If I don\u2019t have a poetry translation commission or a batch of books to review probably about 3 or 4 hours day on everything including administration. Now it\u2019s likely to be a about 5 or 6 hours for the next semester. If we have a translation with a deadline or a reviews or articles to write then 8 hours a day two weeks before the deadline.<\/p>\n


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

For the physical act of writing preferably in the evening although I do a lot of thinking before I write. Often I will \u2019work\u2019 for an evening and not write a line even in the small notebook.

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

No. I always make sure something is written, but never my last thoughts as I like leave something for my subconscious to mull over or forget. Forgetting is very important.

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

When I was in my twenties it was a highly emotional activity. But I could only bear to live with less than half of what I wrote. Now I wait and when a poem has gathered itself into some form of coherence just below consciousness I sit down and try and tease it out. It feels very dispassionate. Yet it must be still very emotional because I have to make sure I do something fairly mindless immediately afterwards, (a movie on TV or the DVD player) because I cannot sleep after writing something, which I think might just work.<\/p>\n

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

Rain. The hillside view from the attic window. Favourite poets. Science. The forest round my cabin. The noise of the stream beside the cabin.<\/p>\n

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

There\u2019s no such thing as silence except when you\u2019re dead. I don\u2019t try to reduce noise to an extreme minimum, but I don\u2019t like being disturbed. I often play music while writing, preferably baroque, Stravinsky or neo-classical French composers. I recommend Poulenc\u2019s chamber music. <\/p>\n

Just now I\u2019m listening to the rain.

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

I\u2019ve just finished a 99 poem sequence, which I began about 10 to 12 years ago. As each poem in the sequence consists of 3 verses of 5 lines each I have to haul in the sheets, come about and catch a different formal breeze in my sails. Viera and I have just translated a sequence by Mila Haugova, Slovakia\u2019s most distinguished living poet, where her starting point was Mallarme\u2019s \u201cA Throw of the Dice \u2026.\u201d Not easy. I have some semi-legible prose poems in the small notebook based on a jumble of reading on symbolism, alchemy and what I\u2019ve seen in the forest around my cabin. I have to see if they\u2019re worth working on.<\/p>\n

My friend Shamil Khairov, who teaches Slavonic languages at Glasgow University and I have collaborated at a snail\u2019s pace on photopoems over the last 15 years. Recently, I began to feel more energy over his photographs and there are a dozen or so I\u2019d like to work on. I have to go to Bratislava tomorrow and I will take a couple of his photos with me and try something on the train.<\/p>\n

*James Sutherland-Smith<\/span><\/a> is a poet and reviewer, and with his wife Viera translates from Slovak.  He scrapes a living teaching at his local university and examining in Slovakia.  His most recent collection is Popeye in Belgrade<\/span><\/a> (Carcanet).  Two selections of poems by Mila Haugova (Slovak) and by Ivana Milankova (Serb) are in a very long publishing pipeline.<\/p>\n


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

Nine QuestionsIn the fourth episode of our new series, Ink Sweat & Tears talks to practicing writers about their process and craft \u2013 and asks them nine questions… 1. Where do you write? (do you have an office, room, bus or train journey that you find yourself and your writing? etc) We have a converted […]<\/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-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","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=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23866,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/23866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}