Q&A with Chris Emery discussion

Writing books is almost always a conversation with what and who you read (living and dead). This thread is about writers and influences.

I'll have to kick this off with the book I've just read, which was Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. It was quite exceptional and I can't recommend it highly enough. But I can't claim that as an influence. If you want to know what has made me write and made me write harder, ask away ...

Less of a question than a comment. 'Writing books is almost always a conversation' you say, and I couldn't agree more. I can't read without wanting to write too because of exactly that - I want to be part of the conversation. The American children's writer, Katherine Paterson, talks about a 'heart-to-heart communication' - one heart in hiding reaching out to another and the two in partnership making a work of literature come alive. I like this idea of writing - of books - being a way of getting to the heart of things, and not just by what they say but by the act of engagement between author and reader.

Absolutely, Pauline.

Blimey, that's quick. Good to hear, too, what other people think. And what HAS made you write, and made you write harder, may I ask?

The incredible need to be other than me. ;)

That's a very good question, actually. I don't feel a compulsion to write all the time, but I think the spaces between writing are vital for a writer to develop. When the writing is taking place, it's very much an act of necessity, perhaps a hunt for something, foraging, perhaps. I've mentioned elsewhere that often other pieces of art act as triggers, provocations and signals. Music, film, paintings. I have a visual imagination and can see poems sometimes. I like the idea of a writer travelling through things, and I think all writers should have itchy feet.

There's a lot in what you say there. The spaces between, yes, I'm going through a 'space between' just now after twenty years of writing novels head to tail. And as for itchy feet... Most of my novels are set in the UK but my last one was set in Belize, and I was lucky enough to secure an Arts Council grant to go out there to do research for it, - since when the itchy feet have scarcely stopped. Music and paintings, yes, these often set me off. A song in particular can have great power if used in the write place in a book. And films I love, but they've never got my writing juices going, I'm afraid.

I think the itchy feet — to my mind — are more about moving around the imagination — don't stay too long in one creative space, keep discovering something new about your writing and your range. I think film is very close to poetry. It can be hugely generative.

right place in a book, not write place - now there's a slip!

LOL