Feature article called The Writer's Retreat in The Times, 2005
The corduroy jacket doesn't work. Neither does letting my hair get a bit tatty. Perhaps I should grow a beard, especially now it's dabbed grey at my chin. I could stroke it too, that might help.
Whenever you tell anyone you're a writer, the reaction is always the same.
They stare. Maybe it's insecurity but this saucer-eyed scrutiny says to me:
'You? A writer?'
Sometimes I wish they'd just say it, loud and proud and rude:
''Well you don't look like one!''
Obviously I don't walk the streets declaring my profession to passers by. Quite rightly, I keep it to myself. I am bullied into the admission only when I'm away on one of my occasional writing retreats. Denial is futile. Who else but a writer is holed up alone in a remote cottage out-of-season, stabbing away at a computer keyboard for four or five days?
Over the past few years I have been rumbled by a man delivering coal; a gardener;
a rather camp shopkeeper; and, of course, the owners or keyholders of the
various properties I've rented. After staring you up and down in slightly
peeved disbelief, their next question is always:
''What's your book about then?''
This is easy enough to answer if the work-in-progress is non-fiction - as
mine have been until now - but a novel is another matter. My first thought
is: don't ask me that because I don't know what it's about. That's precisely
what I'm trying to find out. And, anyway, if I could summarise it now, in
just a few short sentences, I wouldn't be writing the thing in the first place,
flagellating myself with 100,000 words day after day.
''This and that,'' I say.
People don't like vagueness; it annoys them.
''This and that what?''
I make something up. They nod, unconvinced. They stare some more and return
to their original theme:
''A writer, hey?''
I'm thinking (to my shame): if this were a Soho nightclub frequented by literary
types and you were 27, female, beautiful and clever, I'd quite enjoy this
endearing fascination you have with writers. However, since you're a scruffy
little coal man keeping me away from my book, bugger off.
When they've gone, I ponder - what do they expect a writer to look like? What's the mental image? I mean, we're a mixed bunch. Among the male brand, for example, we have at the top table heroic and handsome models you can imagine smelling of pipe-smoke (Hemingway, Steinbeck, Mailer, Updike); skinny, sneery ones (Amis, Parsons, Self, Easton Ellis); or face-for-radio types like Rushdie or King. Take your pick.
The coal man a-knocking at the door has great import because it falls at a time when a writer is in a much-coveted state of aloneness. The pleasure of being cut off from all responsibility, warm and well fed and able to write unfettered, borders on the sensual. Such is its blissfulness, I feel duty bound to lever compromise into my sojourns: I take the family.
My two sons, aged six and eight, love exploring quaint old houses. They charge up the stairs, look in every cupboard, zoom around the garden. All good loud fun. When they leave on Sunday evening, I'm left with the wrong kind of aloneness, the empty kind. I take a bath. Have a shave. Take another bath. These ablutions form a ticking off of the hours. Daylight is the only panacea, a new day.
When the writing goes well, I reward myself with treats. This can be a flick through a magazine (for 300 words completed) or tea and a chocolate biscuit (500). Switching on the television is risky. At home, surrounded by personal effects, the lure of Richard and Judy or Philip and Fern is minimal. When they're your only company, they are irresistible. A sneaky 10-minute viewing can often stretch to an hour.
Another bad idea is a trip to the local pub. The alcohol might help, you tell yourself - loosen up the writing. When you get there you find yourself among a handful of stocky blokes in wellies and wax jackets. They speak in a strange local dialect and have clearly known one another since being knee-high to a piglet. They are probably inter-related too. You find an uncosy corner and nurse a pint. After a few minutes you feel forlorn, unloved and convinced that the proper blokes standing at the bar are mocking you.
On your return to the cottage (bolting the door), the impact of all this melancholy bleeds into the writing. What started out as a knockabout book on your school days or a breezy evocation of your first love turns into a Kafka-esque nightmare. You are the outsider, the damned in the village. All because of that rather gassy, grassy pint you've gulped down.
Eventually a rhythm sets in. You notice almost the exact minute when night drifts in, trading places with the afternoon. You eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired. The days are slow yet somehow pass quickly. By the fourth or fifth you are wholly adjusted but, damn, this is when you start to miss home. You're left with that itchy, restless feeling and hate it, while being aware that this is probably the very thing that makes you want to write in the first place.
( Mark Hodkinson has just delivered his debut novel, The End of Music, to his agent. )