Confessions of a Word-aholic: Kathleen Jones

A few weeks after I had my second child, short on sleep and high on anxiety, I woke up one morning and when I opened my mouth to speak, found that only gibberish came out.  The link, between what I was saying in my brain and what came out of my mouth, was broken.  I was utterly terrified.  Exhaustion - the doctor said - what you need is sleep.  So, a couple of pills were swallowed, baby, feeding bottles, and toddler were handed over to a panicky 'What do I do now?' father, and then I slept for 14 hours straight, woke for a drink and then slept again.  The following morning, my voice was back in its normal place, the tongue articulating what the brain dictated.  But I've never forgotten what it was like not to be able to communicate.

Since then, I've been a compulsive communicator.  And compulsive is the word.  In fact, there's a label for it and I think it ends in 'aholic', and has nothing to do with the amount of wine I drink (though, on the other hand . . . .)

Kathleen, swanning around in the Piazza

When I tell people I'm a writer and I live in Italy, they always say 'Lucky you! How wonderful!'  and think it's all coffee breaks and wine on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean and swanning around in the Piazza. But it's not.  The 'living in Italy' bit probably would be, if the writing part of it didn't get in the way.  As Cally Phillips mentioned in her blog yesterday, the downside of being an Indie author is that it's all down to you.  You have to turn yourself into a multiple personality.  If you're not careful the business side of it can be all-consuming, leaving little time for actual creative writing.

Cover of new biography Photo Ray Troll

The last couple of weeks have been particularly gruelling. Today, I’m sitting here on the bed, (because it’s the only comfortable place to work in this funny little Italian house) surrounded by books and papers and staring at about 6 different deadlines.  Somewhere in the distant past (about 2 years ago) I agreed to write the biography of a poet, Norman Nicholson, and have it in the bookshops by the end of 2013, just in time for his centenary, which seemed fun and absolutely do-able at the time.  But somehow the amount of research has crept up and up, and the deadline has got ever closer and I’m now several weeks behind schedule. My publisher (who, Alas! is also my partner and lives under the same roof) is beginning to get quite unreasonable.

Then there’s the courses I agreed to run this summer - sometime in December or January when it all seemed a long way away and of course I’d have the book finished by then?  There are two of them;  an online course in life-writing for Cally's Edinburgh E-Book Festival (Free to all participants) and a residential course here in Tuscany.  They both need notes and handouts and a course programme, and Yes, Cally!  I will definitely have it done by Saturday!!

Writing at Peralta, Tuscany.

 And then there’s all the business side of being a self-published author, together with all the business of being a traditionally published author - talks and fliers and mobi-files on the one hand - Twitter and Blogger and Facebook and Pinterest on the other. One of my biographies is being published in Japan this year, so I’ve promised the publisher I'd do some publicity for it.  And I rashly promised to contribute to an academic journal on the wisdom or otherwise of writing biographies. Add to that the fact that I’m an active member of three self-publishing groups, (Authors Electric, Awesome Indies and the Alliance of Independent Authors) a member of the Tuesday Poets, review books for an online site, and I’ve now also become a member of a group of women Eco-writers trying to Re-Wild the World and you'll realise why I'm tearing my hair out!  

When, oh when, am I going to be able to say No to anything?  I need my brain scanned to find out if there’s a fragment of commonsense to be found anywhere inside my skull!  There’s a novel sitting on the end of the desk that needs to be edited and a couple of poems I’ve been asked to write and a story that’s burning its way across my brain - and I’m pinning pictures to Pinterest?  Anyone know a good therapist?

Meanwhile, my house is beginning to resemble Miss Haversham's drawing room and I'm about a millimeter away from disproving Quentin Crisp's theories on the accumulation of dust. 

Time ......   That’s what I need.... time to sit on the terrace and drink the wine and the coffee and just enjoy being alive.  There are times when you forget that you need to live a little.  The hamster has to get off the wheel and look at the sunset. There’s that tempting little bistro in the next village that does really good tordelli.  And then you remember the tax return. ........  B@&%*£#!!!!



Find out more about Kathleen's books at www.kathleenjones.co.uk
Kathleen blogs at A Writer's Life
and you can find her Amazon page here....