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A few years ago the Independent put out a call for lists and there were some nice examples from well-known people. So they decided to throw it open to anyone.This was my contribution.
Five things I cannot live without ;
my Polar library
twice-daily arthritis pills
tap water – yes, London
Mum’s pre-war copy of Little Women
with a single colour plate
him indoors
This was my inspiration for my contribution to our Ten Year Anniversary Edition of ABBA this month.
FIVE THINGS A WRITER CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT
1. Inspiration
Mine involves staring which is ok when you are on a deserted beach but can give rise to some tricky moments when you are staring at people in Costa cafe (where I often work) and they start glaring back. Picasso said, "Inspiration is there but it has to find you working." So I write and I grumble and I do displacement stuff and then I find myself going into a stare and there I am - in the wonderful zone of inspiration.
2. Chocolate
I nearly enlarged this picture and those of you who know me will understand why and probably everyone else as well. If inspiration starts with staring then it certainly can be fuelled by chocolate
Don't believe me?
Give it a go!
3. Paper
It has to be the right type. My husband has been perfecting the art of buying me the correct notebooks for over 30 years and trust me, he is the current world expert. Mainly because he can't think of anything else to buy me for birthday presents. I have notebooks to fill from Harrods, the Metropolitan m
17 Comments on FIVE THINGS A WRITER CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT - Miriam Halahmy, last added: 7/28/2010
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Ah, me! What a brilliant post. Ink well monitors and pencils sharpened with a bread knife. My five things:
1. Pilot V Ball liquid ink pens. If I could, I'd ban biros from the house.
2. Camomile tea (and, of course, chocolate).
3. An inspiring illustrated reference book.
4. A decent thesaurus or access to an online version.
5. Hand cream, lip salve, essential oils, chewing gum - all things to distract myself with.
I too am a stationery freak! And will NEVER write with a biro. I love notebooks and have loads and loads of them even though I write straight on to the computer. Go figure!
And I used to write in cafes a lot when my elder daughter was at playgroup. Wrote most of my first few books in a cafe called Silvio's in Didsbury, Manchester. Nowadays I mostly write at home, staring at a beautiful Venetian notebook propped up on my desk to remind me of how beautiful stationery can be.
Am tempted to put chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate... but close behind comes:
2. Money
3. Quiet/safe place to write
4. A good editor
5. Understanding friends
and, of course, chocolate...
Great post. I loved seeing what you can't live without! Really makes me think. I too love the right kind of notebooks and paper - but only i know what that is!
Great to see what you would all choose. I agree with the reference book Karen, I can spend hours perusing those for no reason. Glad I'm not the only stationary freak, Adele. Chocoholics anonymous, that's us Katherine. And Megan has a secret in relation to paper. Coo!
1. My thesaurus
2. A clipboard
3. A 0.5 pilot liquid ink black pen
4. Permission to go to interesting places to do research
5. A beautiful view
(And chocolate. And coffee. And praise.)
(so much for 5!)
Adèle, I understand the beautiful notebook habit and use my for note-making.
Sadly I have eschewed (rather than chewed) all chocolate and other delicious treats until I have lost some more weight, so my list is this:
1. Black coffee
2. A cat companion
3. Radio 4 (until 12 noon, when Radio 3
4. My laptop (currently a sore topic)
5. Enough light.
If I have all those I hope and trust that things like Miriam's inspiration will come.
Bummer. I logged on to distract myself from a sudden desire to bake (and eat) a chocolate cake...may as well just go turn on the oven, so.
Do we all have a stationery fetish? It must be something to do with being writers. I can only write in Moleskin notebooks, red ones for folk tale projects and black ones for original fiction. I can't abide wide-ruled pages or squared ones. I think we used to call them graph books when I was at school.
I write with a fountain pen, but only notes. My first attempts at writing go straight on to my airbook. When I use my laptop, my screen has to be blue - nowadays not the deep royal kind you get in word but the aquamarine in Bean. And the font has to be American Typewriter too, or it's not real writing.
My five essentials?
1 a Vector pen
2 cherries
3 music, usually an epic film ost
4 earplugs for when I don't want music
5 lots of water with lemon
Oh, stationery freaks! (Good stationery is wasted on left-pawed cats like myself...I am jealous.)
I just love the way this has started a whole exchange about stationary. Does anyone but a writer really understand that? Great lists everyone, this could go on forever!
I favour blue Bic biros (other biros are too scratchy) and WH Smiths A6 hardback notebooks. Easy to carry and more importantly I can write whilst walking around. I tried to buy a Moleskin notebook once and it was so expensive that I nearly had a fit! They still work the same way as normal notebooks, right?
Yes, trust me they do. Muji notebooks are about 70p and I love them.
But you can get moleskin notebooks cheap(ish) on Amazon :-)
1. Coffee/gin and orange depending on time of day
2. Radio 4, or radio 3, or opera
3. Fountain pen for notes and mark-up
4. Nice notebooks for notes and scrap books and so on
5. Snacks - often nuts, sometimes chocolate
Well it seems to me that stimulants are high on the list. Now why doesn't that surprise me? Great lists everyone.
1- Coffee (sometimes with chocolate in it)
2 - Notebooks all kinds-I can't pass notebooks without buying them, have piles of empty ones waiting to start- Asda is great for a variety and often really cheap too.
3- Chocolate or nuts or fruit- depending on how well or badly it is going!
4-a laptop- one without internet access!
5-peace with no disruptions
Saviour (apart from the things that I'm not going to list here as they overlap with so many of the above...) I absolutely MUST put cherries on my list too. Every summer I forget how much I like them and then rediscover them all over again like a surprise. Those intense ruby globes... wonderful!