For the writers among you: read Anne Enright’s wonderful piece in yesterday’s Guardian, about ‘creative blockage’. Enright makes a number of really important points, and points that I try to make (but never quite so eloquently) whenever I run creative imagination courses (next one coming up at the Winter Words Book Festival in Pitlochry, Friday Jan 23). Enright reminds us not to expect too much: “There is a tide in creativity, and until you are familiar with its ebb and flow, it is hard to look at that distant sea and believe that it will ever come close again.” And tells us not to worry too much about those days when the tap of words seems to be flowing badly: “But there is no need to panic. It does come back. One day it comes back. The tide turns. The words mean something again, and they manage to stick to the page. The right shell is on the beach, the light is beautiful and just for you. As you turn into the wind and head for home, the swan itself shits on your coat. And there, standing by the car, is another human being.”
Meanwhile: having bored us all to death with various celebrities’ ‘Books of the year, 2008′ over the Christmas and New Year period, all the major newspapers (those few who still bother with books at all…) are picking their predicted ‘hits of 2009′ from those publishers large enough to have their entire 2009 list already completed, covers designed, catalogues printed etc etc this far in advance of publication dates. Well, we’re not actually that far behind them, but you’ll see if you look very carefully that small independents don’t even get a look in. These lists comprise all the ‘big hitters’ – both publishers and writers – and what’s interesting and oh so very very tedious is that every list I’ve looked at so far carries an enormously high percentage of the same books in it.
Ho hum. Let’s hope for a few surprises to pop out of the hat in 2009 – and even better, let’s hope they come from small presses and unknown writers and shake the supreme complacency of the literary world up a bit.
Sharon
