Country Living For Writers - Debbie Bennett

Here's the view from my study window one crisp cold winter's day in early 2011. Looks utterly idyllic, doesn't it? This-living-in-the-country lark must be wonderful. All that fresh air, peace and quiet? Must be perfect for writing. Not really.

I live in a back-to-front house. The view you see in the photograph is the front gate which leads onto a footpath that circumnavigates the village. It's really rather quaint having a footpath that mostly surrounds the village - they have the annual Pie & Peas race (really they do, you can see the route here - it attracts hundreds of runners each year) and the village Pound the Bounds, for the less-energetic. I'm sure there's a book in there somewhere, maybe an Agatha Christie murder or something.  But there's no vehicle access to the front of our house and it's muddy and unlit, so the main entrance these days is at the back, at the top of a narrow single-track lane that has qualities all its own.

So this view is largely uninterrupted, give or take the odd horse-and-rider, jogger or cyclist (and they are very odd around here). On the other side of the footpath is a field which rotates every couple of years between sheep/cows and potatoes. Lovely, I hear you say - all that greenery. Well first it needs "priming". Here's an action shot of the lovely farmer liberally coating the field in some nice fertile manure. If you look closely, you can see where some of the clods have actually flown over the fence and are impaled on our gatepost. Heaven help any innocent people walking past! Fragrant times but all part of the country-living experience.

After the manure has "matured" for a week or so and we have stopped noticing the smell, it's either grass (for animals) or potatoes. Now, we're in early March and it's been potatoes for the past 2 years, so it's probably sheep this year. Yes, the lambs are very cute - especially when you wake up one morning and find most of them in the front garden having got through a hole in the fence and decided our front lawn was nicer to eat than the field. But they are so noisy! All night long a melody of bleats in different tones - I swear they all have their own voices. And there are often a few cows in there for good measure. Have you ever heard cows at night? When it's dark and quiet, you can hear them munching, farting and coughing.

Beyond the first couple of fields is a dip which houses the Inter-City West Coast train line (between Crewe and Liverpool). The cutting ends mid-way across the field and though I don't actually notice the trains much, it's the Sunday-night maintenance work that I hear. Sound travels at night and I can hear every swear-word as I lie in bed.

And talking of voices, I discovered a new word the other day: Nomophobia. The definition of which is a fear of losing your phone or being out of phone contact. Yes, really. Go look it up on wikipedia. I can well believe it, considering that every second person on the footpath is talking on their phone to somebody. Quite frequently they are with one person and chatting away to another as they wander by, oblivious to the fact that I can hear every word.

So if you are ever considering a move to the countryside, or even just a break or a retreat to do some writing, take some earplugs and a good air-freshener! And leave the phone behind.

www.debbiebennett.co.uk where you can educate yourself further from my ramblings - everything from short-story writing to how to be a spy in MI5!

CWA Debut Dagger long-listed adult thriller 

Young adult fantasy - certified 100% vampire-and werewolf-free. Not even any zombies.

Fantasy, sf & horror short stories - from a short-listed competition entry to a novelisation of an episode of a horror tv series. Most of these stories have been previously published in print form in various magazines and anthologies.