Whatever happened to writer’s block?
IDON’T know if you have noticed but suddenly everyone is a writer. When last did you meet a historian or a plumber or a librarian?
Once upon a time it was easy to spot a writer. Writers were broke, had damaged childhoods, led shabby lives, spent a lot of time in cafés drinking absinthe and died young.
Writers were reclusive — and exclusive. I should know, I have stalked them for years.
After reading The Whitsun Weddings, I went all the way to Hull to have a cup of tea with poet Philip Larkin. He wore huge glasses and his lips seemed ink-stained as if he had just eaten a newspaper. He sat and gloomed at me, finally asking: “Are you the trainspotter from Nottingham or the girl from Oxford?”
I even wangled a meeting with Muriel Spark, my favourite writer. At 80 her ancient face was still glamorous and shimmered and flashed like a light under water. There was something suppressed and thrilling about her but, like most writers, she said nothing memorable.
After reading The Magus, I wrote a letter to John Fowles in Greek (God, how pretentious). I once sat next to Mary Renault, who lived in Cape Town, was famous for writing on Ancient Greece and was President Kennedy’s favourite writer. “I just adore Greece,” I twittered. “Oh,” she said, “I loathe it.”
Writers were not keen to meet readers. Fowles once said: “A wellknown writer is persecuted by readers who want to meet you.”
Well, things have changed. Com- bine the explosion of books published with declining total sales, and the result is one can’t get away from writers. They are everywhere, stalking readers, ambushing them into endless book launches and even seducing them with add-on products. Arianna Huffington is selling her book together with items of luxury bedding and aromatherapy.
A visit to a deli or a coffee shop often results in an artfully put-together “news letter” with the subliminal message, “I sell wors, but I am really a writer.”
It all started with the fateful words: Everyone has a book inside.
Facebook is a forest of scribes, penning notices of forthcoming events where they will be speaking, reiterating compliments, posting favourable reviews and talking themselves up with flashy skill.
Most believe they can write better in the country or under a palm tree. Few writers heed Jean Rhys’s sombre reflection: the best writing is done alone in an attic by a cold, hard light.
Most appear to write with astonishing ease: “Five thousand words today,” penned someone whose bio says she is “internationally acclaimed”. “I find writing so cathartic,” she cooed. Cathartic. Did she mean catastrophic?
Maybe it is sophistry or just plain jealousy, but I require more of writers — at the very least to beat themselves up, wear hair shirts, have no friends, get divorced, take drugs, lose all their money, go mad and get fat. Then perhaps they’d think twice about writing a book. LS