"I'd rather talk about anything else than writing to another human being."
Janice Galloway
The Scottish author's first novel The Trick is to Keep Breathing was published in 1990, since when she has written two further novels, a memoir, an opera, and numerous short stories.
Where are you right now?
Propped upon four pillows in bed with my back against the headboard. There are books all over the place and four not-finished cups of cold tea, two Tunnocks wafer wrappers a pair of socks and a leaky pen.
Where do you write?
Sometimes here, sometimes at a desk in my work room. Almost always at home.
How do you write?
Slowly, fearfully. Lots of tugging of hair, constant revision and self-thrashing.
What keeps you writing?
Guilt. Horror. Worry about money and not being enough use to my family. The desperate need to get something right.
Who do you write for?
Anybody curious, I hope. I have no fixed idea of a reader at all. The aim is to be open to anyone that reads.
Do you discuss your work with anyone?
Certainly not. Hell's teeth, I chose to do it, so it's my responsibility - I'm not up for boring anybody with that. I'd rather talk about anything else than writing to another human being.
How do you know if your work is good?
Ha. In general you have no idea, but you work to the limits of your ability to be clear. Clarity, getting the music and the texture of the sentences right, is what you're after.
Do you have any unwritten characters in mind?
Coo. If I force myself, I can come up with Chopin (his last tour) and a single-parent who keeps coming back to haunt me because I haven't done her yet. and a couple more as vague ideas. But in general, no. I have to hope a voice surfaces as I write and tag along, watching them. They usually take their time.
Which book do you wish you'd written?
None. I'm perfectly delighted to have other people write stuff I never could. That's the point of reading - it's a gift from somebody else!
What is your literary guilty pleasure?
Kids' poetry books. I love short, funny poems and reading them to children.
Which writer made you want to write?
Muriel Spark and Marguerite Duras.
Who's the most exciting author writing today?
Whoever is charming me right now. I am a very difficult-to-please reader and give a book around ten pages to draw me in before I choose whether to bother my shirt with the rest of it. If I hang in for the ten pages, I usually love what happens next. I just finished Barbara Gowdy's Helpless and admired it very much. The writers I sit down with huge anticipation to read tend to be - er - dead.
If you weren't writing you'd be...?
Keeping chickens. Dear god I love my chickens.
What next?
Heading to Edinburgh to see my beautiful son who has just left home for university and I miss him. I miss him terribly. He's funny and interested in life. What more could you ask for to give you a sense of "next"?
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Janice Galloway's 'anti-memoir' This is Not About Me is published by Granta and her Collected Stories is published by Vintage on 23rd October.
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Monday, 12 October, 2009
In How I write
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