I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people don’t get writers. They know what they do, but they have no idea why or how they do it. For all they care, stories simply dream themselves up, write themselves down and jump onto the bookshop shelf all of their own accord. Often, writing’s not seen as a real job, more the kind of thing someone does when they have a bit of spare time. Maybe they’re right, maybe it’s not even close to being a real job. Perhaps it’s too important for that. You see, the empty page is where writers live, work, bleed, cry, laugh or whatever the hell it is that they do. Otherwise the words stay trapped in their unconscious, desperate to find a way out. Imagine a world without a Beckett or a Behan, no Kerouac and no Dickens and probably, no Charles Bukowski, although I wouldn’t bet on that.
So if you ever happen to end up living with a writer and you leave them at home when you’re at work, with a simple list of tasks, then there’s probably a few home writing truths you need to be made aware of. Tasks like dinner on the table when you return, the items on the clothes horse ironed and piled neatly on the mahogany table at the top of the stairs and the kitchen floor cleaner than you left it.
Jaysus, and I nearly forgot about putting the bins out on a Tuesday.
Usually the story goes something like this. When you return in the evening, they’ll tell you that they really meant to do what you asked, but that sometime around three o’clock when they were about to get around to it, their mind wandered. At which point they forgot who they were and why they were here, not to mention what they should have been doing. They’ll do their best to explain how time stood still for a couple of hours, until now. Unfortunately, in the real world the clock keeps ticking. They’ll tell you how they met this character called Jack who insisted on taking them for a leisurely wander up and down the chaotic streets of their imagination. They’ll tell you how he had a wild head of hair hanging over a silver fired beard and two giant earrings. They’ll tell you Jack’s to blame for the meat resting untouched on the top shelf of the fridge. And when you’re eyes drift to the unpeeled potatoes, they’ll tell you that when they had finally finished dealing with Jack and were taking the spuds out of the bag, their mind jumped back a hundred and seventy years to a time when there was none. They’ll describe in detail the hungry skeletons shuffling along the highroads and the byroads of the west of Ireland in a desperate search for food, chasing them over to the table where pen and paper waited impatiently for them to scribble down the sad scene, before it was lost and gone forever.
That’s the trouble with writers, once they start, they can’t stop. That’s why writers do everything not to write. Once I start to put words down, the day runs away with itself. Writing is my safe place and when I go there the thought of returning to now is too frightening to even contemplate, so I push on. I lose myself when I write, something I’ve been trying to do all my life. I tried teaching, but something kept nagging away, until I took time out to really listen to what it was. When I write, I get to be somebody else. I get to rip it up and start again. I get to go to places I’ve never been and meet people I’ve never seen and I get to make use of the times, the characters and the places that inhabit my past. Happy and sad times, it hardly matters. A writer cannot do one without the other. When I write I find some sense of peace.
When the worker arrives home, I find it’s always best to ask the first question.
- How did your day go? – A tentative opening best accompanied by an air of interest and polite concern.
- Same as usual. What did you get up to? – Now for the hard part.
- Well, I wandered around Greenwich Village in the morning and found a coffee shop full of old beatniks talking the kind of bollix that matters. We spent a lovely couple of hours chatting and then in the afternoon I came back home and killed someone. - The fact that I did it all from the box room of a semi-detached house in west Dublin seems to be somewhat lost in the telling.
- Where’s the dinner? – Fuck!
- I thought I’d order a take out. I was waiting for you to come home to see what you fancied? – At this point, I’m like a piece of dead meat trying to wriggle off a very sharp hook.
- And the clothes? – A worthy condemnation beautifully delivered in that accusatory tone I’ve come to know so well.
- I thought they needed a little longer. They were a bit damp. – If I could back peddle any faster, I’d be wearing a yellow jersey.
- Do you know what? You’re fuckin’ useless. - Guilty as charged. Nothing to do but hold my hands up. It’s usually at this point that I mutter what I know should stay in my head.
- You won’t be saying that when you’re standing on the red carpet at the effin’ premier. – I did at least an hour’s visualisation on this very subject this morning, so there.
- What did you say? – I can barely hear the words above the sarcasm.
- Nothing. I’ll ring the Indian and then I’ll get going on the ironing. – Now seems like a good time to retreat to the hall to get the take away leaflet, cursing myself for being so willing along the way.
- And don’t forget to take out the bins when you’re at it. – The coup de grâce delivered like the flick of a sword slicing through flesh.
But that’s not all. You’ll also has to contend with the stuff left lying around the house. Exercise books filled with scribbles and coffee shop napkins covered in a line or two waiting to be crafted into something significant. Pens and pencils sitting idle, waiting, always waiting. They’ll probably wait forever.
- Do you need all those pens and pencils? – Here we fucking go again.
- Yes. – I don’t have the energy to waste on such trivial things. I have a book to write.
- But you never use them. – She could be right.
- I will...someday. – And I could be wrong. So they stay where they are on the kitchen table, for now.
The middle of the night is another line of long division, a time when ideas decide to wake writers up and make them turn the light on so they can write them down, because they know if they don’t, they’ll disappear with the dawn.
- Will you turn the fucking light off? – If she thinks I’m going to write in the dark, she’s got another thing coming.
- But I’ve had a great idea. – I know she doesn’t give a a fuck?
- I don’t give fuck. – What did I tell you?
- I’ll go downstairs so. – I do a favourable impression of a German soldier retreating from Stalingrad as I slip quietly down the stairs.
- And take your fucking ideas with you. I have to work tomorrow. It’s all right for you, you lazy shite. – I turn on the light in the kitchen and flick the kettle on.
She’s still awake when I slide under the covers a couple of hours later.
- Sorry love. – Sure I can sleep in in the morning.
- You can stick your sorry up your arse. – I wish I hadn’t apologised now.
Writing’s not for the faint-hearted and whatever small degree of understanding exists at home, you can forget it when you walk out the door. Weddings and funerals, infested by nosey relations and sensible family friends, are for other people. I much prefer to go to a film on my own.
- So what are you doing these days? – It’s Auntie Margaret, the old cow.
- Writing. – I try my best to sound convincing.
- That’s nice, but what are you working at? – She’s like a dog with a fucking bone.
- Writing. – I’ve learnt to be more stubborn. If I say it often enough, I might even begin to believe it myself.
- Go on out of that. – Uncle Fred always makes me laugh.
- I’ve written a book. – I actually have.
- Are you still teaching? That’s a good job. – It’s Margaret again. I was wondering when she’d play the civil service card.
- No, I gave that up a few years ago. The boredom of it nearly killed me. – Nobody understands.
- But you can always go back to it. – I’m beginning to think the fuckers want me in an early grave. Who knows, it might be for the best.
I have a little black book, tucked under my notebook in the bedside drawer, filled with the names of the non-believers. They needn’t be worrying about what they’ll wear to the premier in LA when the invitations are handed out. That’ll teach them, the miserable fuckers. Maybe, just maybe I’ll have the last laugh. And when the sun goes down, at least I can say I followed my heart. Even if it means a sink full of dirty dishes when the flame catches, even if the dinner doesn’t get cooked, the clothes are left to dry themselves and an Indian takeaway is all there is for dinner.
Because blessed are the days when the muse takes care of itself.
