I’m just back from a two-week residency on a small island in the Arctic Circle in Norway. I thought I’d jot down a little about what I took with me as inspiration, how I prepare to write & how I sustain myself:
I’m going to share how I prepare for a long period of writing (based on my recent experience on a residency). You might adapt this or take some ideas from it. I hope it will be useful. First, I make sure I’ve got plenty of poetry to read that will sustain me, I’ll also take some non-fiction, I took Sara Maitland’s On Silence, which is something I re-read every so often, & if I’m writing on a theme (which I am – islands – then I take some fiction on that theme. When settling down to write, I shut the door, turn off my phone, make a pot of tea, light a candle (yes, a bit naff but I like the concentration of it), then read for say 15 to 20 minutes, this helps me to calm myself, to slow down & then I start to write. Often this process gives me an idea and I have something to start with. If it doesn’t, then I’ll freewrite (some people call this automatic writing) for say 10 minutes (I don’t time it, I prefer to guess, or say that I’ll aim to cover 2 pages of A4 as I don’t want to look at my phone or clocks). I’ll then aim to turn these notes into a poem. I usually write for a hour or two at most (again, I guess the time), then go for a walk or a swim, or chat with someone, then I might go back to it. I hope some of this is helpful for your own writing.
