THIS LIFE: FELICITY HAYES-McCOY
AUTHORS DON’T GET OUT MUCH, at least not when they’re in the throes of completing a book. At that point in the writing process, I can spend whole days sitting at my desk in PJs, looking up vaguely every so often to wonder if I’ve made tea. (More often than not, I’ve made it hours ago, and the mug is there sitting beside me, stone cold and still half full.)
I hasten to add that I don’t sit around unwashed. But I do get up, have a shower and reassume PJs and a dressing gown before starting work. It’s a way of warning myself that I’m not allowed to walk away from my computer and saunter down the shops or go visit a friend on a whim. In the time it would take to find some suitable clothes and get myself into them, my internal editor takes over and sends me back to work.
Sometimes, though, I’m allowed to have a bath or take a second shower, because total immersion in hot water is great for dealing with writer’s block. It’s like a charm. As soon as you’ve worked up a lovely soapy lather, you see six ways past the obstacle that had seemed insurmountable, and you have to grope around, dripping wet, for something to write them down on. Then, when you’re back at your computer in your PJs, four of the brilliant solutions look mad, and the fifth is illegible, but the sixth usually turns out to be spot on.
The upshot is that, for weeks on end, home can become a bit like a cross between a boot camp and a sauna. (Don’t start me on the effect of steamy bathrooms on reading glasses). And that’s when Twitter becomes the lifeline that keeps me cheerful and sane.
The secret lies in choosing who to follow, and you know you’ve cracked it when you realise you retweet far more than you tweet. I can’t recommend @IrelandsFarmers too heartily. A different Irish farmer tweets weekly with fascinating stuff about their lives and work and passions, from mud-wrestling recalcitrant sheep to social issues like inheritance plans and the lack of respect, or otherwise, for Ireland’s women farmers. The shots of rolling fields, stunning old farm buildings and complicated modern machinery are amazing, and who could resist questions like ‘What is Silvopasture?’ and ‘Any ideas how many mice a night a long-eared owl would eat?’
Inevitably, having written a series of novels in which the heroine is a librarian, I seek out bookish tweeters like a squirrel looking for nuts. And, in the lovely happenstancy way that characterises Twitter, I’ve discovered online medievalists. I’ve been a sucker for illuminated manuscripts since I first saw the Book of Kells as a child, so I can’t say that their tweets have inspired the fictional Carrick Psalter in my Finfarran novels, but they’ve certainly contributed the occasional warlike snail.
When I come to the end of a chapter or realise I’m fed-up with cold tea, I put the kettle on, log on to Twitter and immerse myself in a world of gorgeous colours and grotesque images. Hares wearing feathered hats and playing musical instruments. Beautiful flowers tumbling like jewels down the margins between the writing. Knights riding snails for horses and brandishing flaming swords. And ladies in flowing robes, wearing corsets and dragon’s-head helmets or headdresses like 1960s beehive hairdos gone berserk.
Every so often the tweeters, mostly scholars working in academic libraries, go rogue and start inventing picture captions. A queen, a monk, and a fabulous bag (probably Kate Spade) made me choke on my freshly-brewed tea. And, recently, I’ve discovered that Star Wars fans, using Photoshop, have creatively rewoven the Bayeux Tapestry. My favourite bit is Luke, I have slain thy father. But I can’t do proper justice to it here, you’ll have to find it yourself.
Not only this, but Twitter cheers me with visions of what I’ll have for dinner. Just down the mountain from the house where I sit in my PJs, my local Gaeltacht pubs and restaurants tweet shots of Dingle Dexter beef, succulent Blasket lobster, and the kind of desserts that make you wonder if you ought to pass on the starters, like ham hock terrine with celeriac and courgette pickle, and Anascaul black pudding filled with smoked Gubeen cheese. Generally, I end up eating beans on toast out in the garden and nipping back to my desk between bites, to agonise over my book. But those photos brighten my days till the last page is written, and another novel wings its way to my publisher.
A brief period follows, when I wear proper clothes and shoes, and blow-dry my hair, and take fewer showers. There’s time to go for walks on the beach, or make shopping trips to London, and to do things I’ve almost forgotten, like see films and hang out with friends. And then it’s back to edits and proofing, and more cold tea and my PJs. And Twitter becomes the lifeline that sustains me once again.
When writing, home becomes a cross between a boot camp and a sauna – and that’s when Twitter becomes a lifeline