Busy Doing Nothing

Image by Mountjoy via Flickr

Writers need long periods of doing nothing. The down side is: at first you can feel very guilty about not getting on and about all the other people who are working tremendously hard. The upside is that nothing ever seems like waste of time again and you’re not kidding yourself when you say that a walk in the park or along the beach is part of your work. The fact is you need to feed your subconscious.

I have to admit the first time I did this it seemed odd. It was a session of my MA in Writing for Children. They asked us to go to Winchester Cathedral at 5.00  instead of the college at 6.00. We were told to just walk around for a couple of hours, listen to Even Song if we wanted to and above all not to speak to anyone if we could help it,  especially not to another member of our group.

Yes, it felt bizarre. Then I began to notice that the elongated Christmas Crib figures were actually rather strange. There is a notice telling people to take care on the very old floor tiles. Everyone ignores it and walks across the tiles as if they came form B & Q last week.  St Swithun  is buried there and has a weird hold over the weather. The artificial light inside and outside is very yellow. As I walked from one building to another I felt the rain on my skin and asked myself how I would describe it to someone who had not felt rain before. And isn’t it odd how we buy things? Either little bits of metal which we give in and don’t get back or a piece of plastic which we use over and over again.         

We met at 8.00 in the pub and after our lecturers had departed, we discussed how nuts we thought they’d gone.

One of our lecturers said we’d thank him one day. I do, now. All the time.

Oh, and by the way, a story called The Gargoyle came out of that strange visit. It’s about an alien who looks like a gargoyle visiting Winchester Cathedral.  He makes lots of faux pas, not least of all not realising there are no gargoyles on the cathedral’s west face.

Savour those moments of doing nothing. Being stuck in a traffic jam or in the waiting room at the dentist may never be so annoying again.  Watch how other drivers and patients behave. Or spend the time wrestling in your mind with one of your characters or settings. Sit in a café and watch a whole range of human behaviour. Best of all, go somewhere without any expectation at all. Something may come up – either then or later. If nothing else you’re building up a bank of memories you can mine in the future.         

It’s worth programming into your diary. Wednesday afternoon: do nothing.