Writing as a physical activity
Tracy Farr describes her writing day.
I’m a binge-writer. I write when I can, and sometimes that’s not very often. I’ve learnt not to let that make me anxious. There are days and weeks, sometimes months, when my day job takes over. I tolerate writing’s absence, knowing I’ll write solidly when I have the opportunity.
I work well in retreat, so occasional writing residencies I’ve been lucky enough to have and taking time offered at a friend’s bach have saved my writing life. I’ve only had one taste of writing full-time, for six months in 2015 when Creative New Zealand funded me to complete my second novel, The Hope Fault. It took some getting used to, after binge-writing for so many years. But it was magnificent – not just novel-changing, but life-changing. I can work in the white noise hum of a cafe, but at home, the littlest noise throws me.
I’ve learnt that writing doesn’t always look like writing. Sometimes, writing looks like reading in bed, or walking, or making bread, or watching a film. Sometimes, it looks like kindergarten (scissors and glue, coloured pencils, big sheets of paper), or dyeing fabric, or stitching a map on a cushion. Sometimes, writing sounds like singing, or a conversation in which I do all the talking, or an argument with myself. Sometimes, it looks like catching the bus, or pacing the room, or making shapes with my body to see whether what I’ve written is a thing that a body can do.
I can work in the white-noise hum of a cafe, but if I’m at home, the littlest noise – music, the radio, someone loading the dishwasher – throws me (and don’t get me started on the sounds of the suburbs – weedwhackers and chainsaws). Still, home is best, as writing for me can be quite physical (what with all that pacing, talking, singing, arguing).
I write longhand in a notebook when I want to bring a project to life while it’s fresh and new, or to kick-start it if it’s stalled or been left alone for too long. Writing by hand helps me switch my editing brain off. It stops me worrying about word counts and style guides (hyphen or en dash?), all the little distractions that I’m hostage to when working on a screen.
My current notebook of choice is an A4 Fabriano, quad-ruled and staple-bound. I’m not (I surprise myself) too fussy about the pen or pencil I write with, though I do have serial favourites. I track my progress, numbering and dating each notebook, each page, and stamping each page (that satisfying thump; I’m a frustrated librarian) when I transcribe from notebook to computer.
Each handwritten page is a record (the pressure of the pen, the shape and size of the words, the notes that I leave for myself as I go) of how I write. I arrow and annotate, draw in the margins, glue in pages. I linger over or doodle around a word or phrase that is pleasing or bothering me. My writing’s measured out in tea stains, biscuit crumbs and cat-paw prints. I draw outlines around them, make them part of the process.
Tracy Farr’s new book, The Hope Fault (Fremantle), is out now.