Guest blog by Alison Napier. Falling on deaf ears: a cautionary tale dedicated to the NHS

Alison Napier is a writer who has contributed to Northwords, New Writing Scotland 26, and two Two Ravens Press anthologies (Riptide and Cleave). She formerly lived in Sutherland, but has recently moved to Devon to study full-time for an MA in Creative Writing.

The term nears its end.  How did these ten weeks fly by so quickly?  Why does life fly by so quickly?  We began in the golden mellow of a Devon autumn and end in the damp and chilly south west winter. 

 

Family phone calls and the Met Office tell me about snowstorms and blocked roads in the far North.  Technology brings Scotland nearer yet oddly also makes it feel much farther away because I can only access it online.  A click to the Northern Times.  Another click to the New York Times.  I sip some cider.

 

I heard Andrew Greig in a workshop saying that it was often far easier to write about a place after you have left it.  I am finding this to be true and am writing about Scotland with a ferocity and vigour.  Suddenly my main character must travel to Sutherland.  She absolutely must. 

 

So why the whimsical tone, student of creative writing?

 

Because I am experiencing a period of sensory overload.  Scotland whooshes through me like the Oykel in spate, and drains away like the Kyle of Tongue.  Exhilarating and exhausting.

 

And because the world has become an EXTREMELY NOISY PLACE.   My favourite café sounds like a war movie, shells exploding all around me, shrieks and yells and a constant roaring overhead.  A child cries in the next county, deafeningly and urgent.  I must rush to the rescue.  A car alarm kicks off and I swivel in terror.  I am being followed by a scrunching rustling stalker. I stop.  He stops.  I identify this is as the sound of my anorak sleeves.

 

You may have guessed by now that I have been fitted with two very efficient digital hearing aids.  I stir my coffee and the teaspoon crashes against the sides of the cup.  I remove it and lay it very carefully on the table, looking furtively around.  My voice booms and echoes in my skull, and I whisper because I sound so loud, so no one hears me when I talk, in an ironic reversal of roles.  I can even hear the crunch of the credit, birling through space, a Ryvita (Multi-Grain) in the Hadron Collider.

 

In the gaps between the chaos I have been given a free glimpse into a hyper-wired world.  Others get this with drugs.  But if I listen carefully I can hear the grass grow and I can hear the clouds bumping gently into each other. Birds whisper, thinking that I cannot hear, spiders weave, their shuttles clacking back and forth, and the red knitted ploughed field breathes a sigh of relief as the early mist rises.

 

Oh yes.  The creative writing course.  Well, I am discovering what my novel is about.  This was aided by having to do a presentation to the class on its genesis, content, and progress to date.  Classmates and tutors asked probing questions and I listened to their comments and my answers with interest.   So I found out lots about it that day.  In addition we have all completed out first assessed piece of work, submitted yesterday, ‘a proposal for a piece of creative writing’.  I wrote about my novel.  As opposed to writing my novel.

 

And now all I want to do is to finish it.  But instead I have to write a 4000-word essay and complete a writer’s notebook by mid-January.  And therein lies the conundrum of the creative writing course.  The clever thing would be to do both.  And maybe I will.

 

Finally, may I wish everyone a pleasant festive season despite the economic glooms, and a harmonious and creative 2009.  And for total peace and tranquillity, simply remove both hearing aids.  Splendid!