Collected: November 2024
Taking Laurence Sterne's advice to deal with writer's block, turning to extreme minds for inspiration, and using notebooks to get the work done.
No Mood to Write
“Now my memory, as well as my ability to write, seemed to be failing. I felt a chill on my mind, like a mist rising over fenland.” Penny Boxall
RLF Fellow Penny Boxall looks to Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, for inspiration on dealing with writer's block.
Read the full story here.
Notebooks, cameras and the process of creating
“Francesca tells me that when she’s drawing in the British Museum or the National Gallery, tourists crowd round her, taking photographs. They’re excited by an artist practising their art.” Stephanie Norgate
RLF Fellow Stephanie Norgate looks to some of literature's most prolific notebook writers – including John Cheever and Virginia Woolf – to explore why we’re so fascinated by the processes of creation.
The full essay is available here.
Dr Mark Blacklock
Duration 28.23 min
“Quite a lot of writers at the beginning of their career start thinking this: where or what are my stories, where am I from, what am I about?” Mark Blacklock
Caroline Sanderson interviews novelist and culture historian Dr Mark Blacklock.
Focusing on location
Duration 18. 31 min
“A university campus has an odd melancholy when out of term. The place was largely deserted, and burnt brown by the scorching summer. Earlier in the season there had been a few proud graduands, begowned, with their Sunday-best-dressed parents in tow, seeking a good spot for a photo which would grace the family mantelpiece for years to come (their own memorial), but now there were only a few postgrads shuffling around uncertainly, having emerged blinking from the shelter of the library as if surprised to find themselves in a physical world, and the occasional lecturer enjoying the peace or shirking the pressures of school holiday childcare.” C.D. Rose
C.D. Rose, Elizabeth Cook and Mark Blayney explore the locations that have inspired and informed their writing.
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