A good day for writing

Now this is just perfect for cracking on...a thick layer of snow. It was still falling when we woke up this morning and there was that silence outside that says no one is going anywhere.

Footsteps on the front steps. All is monochrome outside. Inside, we put the kettle on for a pot of tea and settle down for a cosy and productive day.

 

Stinging yellow

Even after weeks of rain in Kent, when the clouds clear the colours of an English May are eye-catching distractions everywhere you look. It will soon be as hard to write here as it is in Provence.

“I think England is the very place for a fluent and fiery writer. The highest hymns of the sun are written in the dark. I like the grey country. A bucket of Greek sun would drown in one colour the crowds of colours I like trying to mix for myself out a grey flat insular mud. If I went to the sun I’d just sit in the sun; that would be very pleasant but I’m not doing it, and the only necessary things I do are the things I am doing. Unless by accidents, and my life is planned by them, I shall be nearer Bournemouth than Corfu this summer.”

So wrote Dylan Thomas to his literary acquaintance Lawrence Durrell in December 1938. I’m a great admirer of both men’s work but have to confess that I take heart from the Welshman on this: I much prefer to write in the dark drear of British grey than the vibrant light of the south.

Thomas on his Carmarthenshire waterfront; Durrell in the searing blues and golds of the Greek island of Corfu: both connected through a mutual admiration of what the other achieved, one in the dark, one in sunlight. It’s fascinating to see, as the letter goes on, how well Thomas understands the effort and the personal turmoil of Durrell as he hammers out his words, striving so hard to be taken seriously, and how generous his encouragement:

"I liked your Stygian prose very very much, it’s the best I’ve read for years. Don’t let the Greek sun blur your pages as you said it did. You use words like stones, throwing, rockerying, mossing, churning, sharpening, bloodsucking, melting, and a hard firewater flows and rolls through them all the time…"

Winter sharpness

The faҫade and courtyard of our house face due south. On a sharp sunny day the trees etch complex outlines over the stone and render, lifting up all the imperfections that are so much part of the charm here.  One day we might restore right back to the stones – or we might not. It’s a very different view from the courtyard in summer, when the catalpa tree next to the house is in full canopy, and the leaves of the fig, olive and walnut also provide dappled shade.

But I find this winter version energizing: there’s something about the cold and dazzling winter light that sharpens the brain cells too. I’ve been writing all week with the notes made during this sunny time, and they seem to have had a clearing effect on the work in progress as I strive for equal crispness of thought and prose.

This is why I love to write in autumn and winter, barrelling into a first draft so that I get to the stage of playing around with the words just at the time when the warmer weather makes me want to be outside and anywhere but sitting at a desk.