The Creative Identity

Intermission

When I go to Heaven I want to get there by Ygddrasil, like this: Read more →

How To Become A Writer

Who said that the more you know, the more aware you are of how little you know? No matter who it was dear reader; they are the words of a genius. I come across what I don't know daily, and I am often flabbergasted to realise that I lived up until that moment without that knowledge, whatever that may be. I felt it acutely a few days after I moved last month, when I found myself in Daunt's and picked up one of those slim single editions that Faber published to celebrate the launch of its Modern Classics. The one I picked up was How To Become A Writer by Lorrie Moore. And I am coming to the point: I did not know who Lorrie Moore was. There, I've said it, I've blown whatever pretence of knowledge of books I may have created in here, and elsewhere. So how is this even possible? I read this wonderful short story (nay hilarious how-to, if you ask me) in minutes, then ran out to get the collection it comes from (Self-Help), as well as a very satisfactory tome, The Collected Stories, this thick, this high, and completely wonderful to rest on your chest as you read in bed. And there I was, wondering how I lived all these years without this wonderfully penetrating prose, without these fantastically acute observations. I nodded and laughed like a hyena throughout How To Become A Writer and frankly thought this was a short story written for... Read more →

On The Additional Merits of Books

Three weeks ago today I was pacing around my old home, observing a bunch of very willing and very hunky removal boys pack my things at record speed. By the time I swished out for lunch, 80% of my possessions had already disappeared into cardboard boxes. When I returned, only the bathroom paraphernalia and my bed were still in place. Today, I am writing to you from my new study, a 2.5m x 2.5m box overlooking the gardens, oak trees and rooftops of the mews just behind my house. You really would not know this is super central London. I work with a girl, a fantastic change manager, who displays unequalled finesse in her understanding of human emotions. In our first Skype call after I pitched up here, she told me that it's quite normal to feel hard-done by and unable to bond with the new place, for each change that affects us needs to progress through a period of normalisation in order for its establishment to be successful. In other words, new must become normal before we ourselves feel normal again. The day after I moved I wrote in my diary, 'I don't like the new house. It smells and I cannot find anything. I cried too'. The day after that I wrote, 'Went to Harrods and feel like myself again. That place can make anything better'. Six days after that I wrote, 'It's great to live here'. By the time the first weekend was out, I had just... Read more →