For the past 25 years, I have gone into periodic lockdowns. Worse, they have been self-imposed, so I haven’t even been able to snipe at the Government or the virus or some other external force. The only target of blame in my sights is me.
But why do I enforce this stern regime from time to time? When I’m working on a book, at some point, I have to withdraw from the world whether I like it or not. My imagination is like a maelstrom — whirling, undisciplined, wild. That’s all very well, but for a novel you need structure, story, a point. Putting myself into lockdown reduces distractions and forces me to focus; only then can I marshal the strange blossomings of my imagination into a form that makes sense.
Perhaps this is why lockdown has been less hard for me than it is for many? Being cooped up sporadically, with only a couple of forays beyond my four walls for a walk or to nip to the shops, is not a “new normal” for me. It’s just normal.
When I begin a new novel, I tend to spend too long sitting on the edge, musing and making notes, dangling my feet in the water without getting in. But, eventually, I have to plunge into the depths. It is a kind of surrender, this immersing myself into the book. This stage feels like some form of madness, only one to be welcomed. The intensity of it can be unsettling, but it is necessary because this total immersion is also what brings the story to life. The characters become so real to me that when I leave them — to venture out for fresh air — I feel a wrench. In the street, a neighbour waves and says hi. “Who are you?” I think, momentarily confused. My head is so fizzing with the inhabitants of my story that outside people, actual people, seem unfamiliar, not quite real.
Occasionally, I have managed to get away from home for a writing lockdown — ideally to the middle of nowhere with no vehicle, no easy means of escape. The first time I ever did this was when writing my first novel, Love is a Four-Letter Word. Ridiculously, in the end, that book took me five years (the same as it took Flaubert to write Madame Bovary...), but in my one month away in lockdown, I wrote more than I had in the previous two years, so it was worth it. It took so long partly because for much of that time I was still doing a real job (I was an editor, working on gardening books). The other reason was because I had no idea what I was doing. It was as if I’d been given a plot of land, a cement mixer and an unlimited supply of bricks — and told, there you go, build a house. But — casting around wildly — where are the plans?
For that first novel, my writing lockdown was on a sheep farm a couple of miles from a tiny village in Devon. The farm was also a B&B and they gave me a special discounted rate to come for a month, warning me that for part of that time it would overlap with lambing season so they might be inattentive hosts. That was fine. Beautiful countryside, zero traffic noise, peace, time, no distractions. Perfect.
One day, while I was deep in rewriting a chapter, there was a sudden banging on my door.
“Can you come? You’re needed in the lambing shed!”
I dropped my pen and went.
Perhaps you are wondering — how desperate would you have to be to demand the presence of a Jewish writer in a lambing shed? Is that really more useful than nothing? Apparently so.
My job was to pick up the newly-born lambs and move them from one pen across the shed to another. A young lamb, frolicking across a field, is a sight to fill even the stoniest heart with joy, but a new-born lamb is a lot less lovely. You have to pick it up firmly so it doesn’t fall, trying not to think “my writing hand is covered in slime”.
Getting to grips with a book is like Jacob wrestling with the angel. It is largely about not giving up. You must be engaged with it, no matter how wearing it gets. That is how you prevail — by staying in the ring. So too with the virus, now with glimmers of hope as each day brings news of progress with various vaccines, that is how we will — eventually — get there. We have to see the rules of lockdown not as constraints but as a regimen to help us get where we want to be. Persistence is everything.
Luckily, lockdown is not without its consolations. For me, reading is as much of an escape as writing. Fiction is one of the ways we can set ourselves free during lockdown. Whether it’s via books or films or our favourite TV series, fiction gives us access to other lives, other stories than our own. No matter that we can’t hop on a plane or ship or train to take us elsewhere; stories give us the freedom to explore endless worlds beyond the confines of our own homes, our own minds.
Claire Calman’s latest novel, Growing Up for Beginners, is available online.
