Sounding the Retreat
Charity Norman finds the best way to focus on writing instead of the latest family crisis is to run away.
The thing about writing for a living is that it’s all down to you. No structure, no water cooler, no buzzing office, no ongoing feedback, no gatekeeper manning the phone. Just you.
The upside is that your commute is ten seconds and you can work in your pyjamas if push comes to shove. The downside is that there’s no drawbridge: the needy dog, cat, family, a constant stream of unannounced visitors, spam callers … the entire world thinks that because you work from home, you’re not really working at all. ‘Got time to meet up for coffee?’ they ask cheerfully. Or ‘Have you seen my socks?’ You suppress an urge to throttle them. Then there’s the phone, the emails, social media, the news and all those cute cat videos.
Sometimes, when I’m really desperate, I run away. I have kind friends who lend me their cliff-top cottage at the end of a long gravel track, off the grid for power and water, no phone, no Internet. Day pass with no sign of human life: just the sheep, a friendly donkey, sometimes a container ship creeping along the horizon. The stars blaze across the night sky and in the mornings – from my pillow – I watch the sun rise over the Pacific. I can achieve more in a week there than I might in a month at home.
This cottage was especially perfect when I was writing my fifth book, See You in September – a story about a self-sufficient community called Gethsemane. In that extreme isolation Gethsemane became more and more real. Its characters were my only companions, alongside the thundering waves and hissing cicadas. I became a little inculcated and even began to feel I had to keep the Gethsemane rules! But it was well worth the slipping of my sanity because by the time I left my hermitage and rejoined the world, I’d finished that dreaded second draft.
My next is due for publication early next year. It’s set in South London, so I used a family wedding as an excuse to make a site visit. Alas, you don’t spot many cliff-top off-the-grid cottages in Balham, but I found a quiet corner in a café and … but no, that’s another story.
Charity was born in Uganda, met her future husband under a Bedford truck in the Sahara and spent fifteen years working as a barrister in York and Newcastle chambers before moving with her family to New Zealand. Novels include Richard & Judy/WH Smith, BBC Radio 2 Book Club and World Book Night titles and have been translated into various languages. Her latest, See You in September, was a Ngaio Marsh finalist and UK Reading Agency book of the year. Charity now lives in Wellington, and loves hearing from readers. Please join her on Facebook at facebook.com/charitynormanauthor and on Twitter: @charitynorman1