Читать книгу The Incomplete Tim Key - Tim Key - Страница 10

INTRODUCTION

I am writing this introduction in a quaint little Airbnb in the Cotswoldshires, UK. I’ve escaped. I’ve wriggled free from the menacing clutches of London in order to track down some peace and quiet, and the best I could find is here. It is, in case you didn’t know, crucial for a writer to find these favourable conditions. If he intends to write seven introductions and a new poem and generally reread and correct typos as he moves forward from hardback to paperback, it is vital that he finds a nice little spot to do it in.

I obviously don’t want to bore you with the ins and outs of my process. I was once approached at a theme park by someone who was fixated on finding out all about my process. ‘I’d be fascinated to know what your process is,’ he kept saying. ‘Come on, son, tell us about your process.’ He was horrible, this fella. He kept breaking away from his wife and running over to me and my group. Trying to sit next to me on rollercoasters. Generally being a pain in the backside. And all the while using this word ‘process’ like it was going out of fashion. In the end I had to just tell him. I let him sit next to me on the Collossus and I talked him through it. Told him how I approached writing poetry. But by that point he seemed to have tuned out. Some kind of latent human instinct had kicked in and he screamed through most of what I had to say. Not that I minded. I waited till we landed and picked it up again in the bit where you can buy a photo of you screaming in the drizzle. ‘The most important thing,’ I confirmed, ‘is that you give yourself the best conditions to write in.’ And I genuinely believe that.

If you’re serious about knocking out a book, or anything, really. A mag, a journal, a poem, a song, a Post-It. Whatever it is, you can’t expect to be able to do it if the conditions aren’t up to snuff. I demand the right temperature, the right music, the right biscuits, the right time of day. I sometimes lie awake at night wondering how that old-school bell-end Hitler managed to get his book done in prison. I just can’t wrap my head round that one. If I’m sat in my own excrement in a titchy cell, wearing some kind of dowdy boiler suit, I’m getting fuck all done. I need to be in a comfortable jumper and I need to be able to come and go as I please. Which is precisely why I’ve forked out X amount of money, slapped my fat arse on a train for two hours and squeezed myself into this Airbnb. And believe me. It ticks the boxes.

It really is bliss being here. Just to give you an idea of the kind of place we’re dealing with, it is absolutely riddled with beams. They are low and quaint and have the effect of making me plunge my fist into my hand and whisper the word ‘nice’ every time I become aware of one. The fire is roaring away. The owner – a Charles Moore – must have come up here over the weekend and stooped over his chopping block because there are something in the region of 500 chunks of wood balanced temptingly on either side of the fire, ready to be incinerated for my pleasure. And that is exactly what I’m doing. No sooner have I shat out a paragraph than I plod across to the fireplace and clumsily sling another gnarled log on. And then whoosh! The whole place lights up. And back I go, back to my laptop. Back to my wine.

Whenever you use an Airbnb I think you should feel at liberty to tuck into anything they’ve not locked away. I started by helping myself to a cheeky pinchful of salt last night as I boiled up some pasta for my tea. I firmly believe he’d left that salt out for that exact purpose. But today I’ve made myself much more at home. I’ve lit the bastard’s candles, I’ve infiltrated his wardrobe, I’ve wrapped one or two ornaments in tea towels and squirreled them away into my overnight holdall. I have, as per his welcome pack, ‘made myself at home’. And now here I sit, reclining deep, deep in his sofa, relaxing in a huge pair of his cords, and writing.

Writing, writing, writing. Once or twice I will pause to glug this rich stiff-neck’s wine from a tankard I found hanging above the hearth. Occasionally I will sling another log on or take a dump in the ornate upstairs bog, but primarily I write. Unchallenged, without distractions. I am laying into my intros like a man possessed. I am getting the job done. I am transforming, updating, revolutionising the top and tail of my book. And I thank the advent of Airbnb and the dope they’ve hooked me up with for providing me with the perfect conditions in which to do it.