Where and when do you do your best writing? Guest Post by Fran Brady
I drift awake as fingers of light probe the curtains. Where
am I? Not at home. Then a glow of delight starts somewhere in the region of my
belly and creeps up my body. It washes my face in a grin. I remember where I
am.
I inch out of bed, reach for my dressing-gown and push my
feet into the rubber sandals that will double as slippers and paddling shoes
for the next fortnight. My husband is still fast asleep: I know by the click at the top of each breath.
At the bottom of the stairs, my dog stirs in his basket and
watches me. Time to get up? No, not yet: just the early shift. He drops his
head on to his paws and is asleep again in seconds.
The kitchen is filling with light. Curtains are never drawn
here. Moonlight on the water demands an audience. As I wait for the kettle, I
watch a corncrake strutting on the handkerchief of lawn. The rest of the garden
must be left wild by law to ensure this bird’s habitat and now I reap the
fruits of compliance. Later will come boatloads of twitchers with cameras, tripods,
binoculars and picnics. Have you seen
one? they will ask as I pass them on my way to the shop. They will hear
them: who does not? Crek! Crek! The
sound is everywhere on the island but seeing
is a different matter. I watch as the bird slips into the long grass and begins
its mating call, ever-hopeful.
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| Looking out of the kitchen window |
The coffee smells wonderful. I smile at the mug and raid the
heap of home-baking by the breadbin. Hurrah for grateful houseguests! I choose
a slab of cherry and almond cake. The sitting-room with windows on three sides
is also full of light; chilly, though, now that my bed-warmth is dissipating. I
switch on two bars of the electric fire and fetch my leggings and thick socks
from behind the couch where I hid them last night. I liberate my laptop from
its charging cord and settle on the sofa facing the east window. As I sip my
coffee and savour the cake, waiting for the computer to boot up, I watch the
sun push up behind Ben More. It reminds me of watching my grandchild being
born, the head crowning from the birth canal, full of promise.
I finish the cake and blow a couple of crumbs off the
keyboard. I close my eyes and let the words, phrases, scraps of dialogue and
ideas for plot development that were fermenting in my head as I fell asleep
rise to the surface. Then I open them and begin to type. After a while, I stop,
read, frown, change, delete, cut and paste. The last mouthful of coffee is
forgotten and goes cold. It is not quite seven o’clock and the sun has risen
over the Sound of Iona.
The door slides open and, looking up, seeing no-one, I
think: Dog. No dog appears. What on earth…? A small child appears round the side of the
armchair: my granddaughter, that crowning head beginning already to fulfill its
promise. She sidles in, reading my do-not-disturb signals, and comes to sit at
my side without a word. I carry on tapping the keys and stroking the cursor
pad. She picks at a few cake crumbs on the sofa and peers at the coffee dregs
with disgust. A few minutes pass in which I try to remain in laptop world and
she tries to remain still and silent.
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| Our house |
We both give in at the same moment. Then we are laughing and
hugging and she is telling me about her dreams of the night and her plans for
the day. She asks me what I have been writing but, before I can begin to tell
her, she is demanding A STORY. I take
her over to the window and we watch the fishing boats coming home and the gulls
keening over them. Once upon a time,
there was a little girl who went on holiday with her mummy and daddy and
grandma and granddad and some other people to a big house on a tiny island….
“And Tucky woof-woof” she interrupts. At the mention of his
name, Tucker the dog decides it really is morning now and comes through to join
us. We will just have time for a story before the first breakfaster invades the
kitchen. My writer’s sunrise world has gone for another day.
I spend two weeks
every year at a big house on the Hebridean Isle of Iona. Over the past twenty
years, my husband and I have taken over fifty friends and family members with us
and enjoyed wonderful house-party holidays. My fourth novel (a
work-in-progress) is set in that beautiful area (well, it would be rude not
to!) in the 1920s. Researching it over several years’ has been enormous fun and
I am more in love now than ever with ‘Iona of my heart; Iona of my love.’ (from
a poem attributed to St. Columba who landed on Iona in 563 and brought
Christianity to Scotland).
Fran has published two
novels and one children’s book. She is also currently (and experimentally)
uploading her third novel in installments on to her website, advertising it with
links on her Facebook author page.
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