I don’t believe that writing just takes place when you’re sitting at your desk. Trying to write a story can also mean hours spent wandering off, messing about, seemingly wasting your time. The protagonist in this story has been awarded a residency at the Heinrich Böll House on the beautiful Achill Island, off the west coast of Ireland. She’s looking forward to concentrating on her work. But what does she do? She goes for a swim, she bakes a cake, she takes a bath, she thinks about a Chekhov story. One cause of her distraction is the intrusion of a German professor who wishes to see the Böll house — a person from Porlock, you might think. When he arrives he is shocked at her inactivity. But I suspect that supposed laziness was necessary for her to start writing, in order for her pen to move across the pages of her notebook.
Collected in Walk the Blue Fields, Faber 2007
A Personal Anthology 