A block holds everything together; it keeps important things down, for a reason. A block might then work like depression, as a way of keeping the unacceptable at a distance, even as it continuously reminds you that it is there.
*
Once I’d embarked on The Buddha of Suburbia I found characters and situations I couldn’t have planned for. Changez, in particular, was a character who sprang from an unknown source. I knew Jamila had to have a husband who’d never been to England before. In my journal of January 1988 I wrote ‘Part of me wants him to read Conan Doyle. Another part wants him to be illiterate, from a village. Try both.’ Originally I had imagined a cruel, tyrannical figure, who would clash violently with Jamila. But that kind of cruelty didn’t fit with the tone of the novel. I found, as I experimented, that the naiveté I gave Changez soon presented me with opportunities for irony. If arranged marriages are an affront to the romantic idea that love isn’t something that can be arranged, what would happen if Changez did fall in love with his wife? What if she became a lesbian?
Many of the ideas I tried in the book seemed eccentric even as I conceived them. I taught myself not to be too dismissive of the strange. There was often something in peculiar ideas that might surprise and startle the reader just as I had been jolted myself.
*
When my films were made and books published Father was delighted, if not a little surprised. It was what he wanted, except that it happened to me rather than to him. Towards the end of his life, which coincided with my becoming a professional writer, he became more frantic. He left his job, wrote more, and sent his books around the publishing houses with increasing desperation. At times he blamed me for his failure to get published. Surely I could help him as he had helped me? Even as he took pride in what I was doing, my success was mocking him. For the first time he seemed to have become bitter. If I could do it, why couldn’t he? Why can some people tell jokes, do imitations, juggle with knives and balance plates on their nose, while others can only make soufflés? How is it that people might persist in wanting to do something they will never excel at? Is writing difficult? Only if you can’t do it.
*
I like to work every day, in the morning, like my father. That way I am faithful to him and to myself. I miss it badly if I don’t do it. It has become a habit but it is not only that. It gives the day a necessary weight. I’m never bored by what I do. I go to it now with more rather than less enthusiasm. There is less time, of course, while there is more to say about the process of time itself. There are more characters, more experience and numerous ways of approaching it. If writing were not difficult it wouldn’t be enjoyable. If it is too easy you can feel you haven’t quite grasped the story, that you have omitted something essential. But the difficulty is more likely to be internal to the work itself — where it should be — rather than in some personal crisis. I’m not sure you become more fluent as you get older, but you become less fearful of imagined consequences. There has been a lot to clear away; then the work starts.
Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on teaching and the writing life
Twenty young people drift into a room beside a theatre for the start of a new writing workshop. Nervous or uncertain, most have never met before and won’t know what will be asked of them or what a writing workshop involves. All sorts of alliances, liaisons and friendships will develop over the months, but now I am as anxious as anyone: whether the fear is of what will happen, or of what might not happen, I don’t know. But I am the teacher; like it or not, I have the authority. I am not entirely certain of what I will say or do — and I don’t want to be — yet it’s up to me to make these meetings worthwhile.
In the hope of dissipating some of the self-consciousness, I play a few standing-up ‘name’ games, where people introduce themselves. Then we run about a bit, before sitting down to play some word games. Whatever you do at the beginning, it will always take a few weeks for people to begin to feel at ease, for them to be able to speak to each other about their writing or read it aloud. All workshops generate some kind of work, but the most inspiring ones are often those which are concentrated over a weekend or week away; or, like this one, they will continue for months until the participants begin to see how they can use them — and the other people there — to benefit their writing. They might even get an idea of what ‘their writing’ is.
At last we sit in a circle where everyone can see everyone else. But the ‘democratic’ circle is too big and the chairs are crammed together. Around half of this size, about twelve or less, is the best number. Over the weeks, of course, some people will leave.
As far as I can tell, it seems to be a disparate group in terms of race and background. I would prefer more diversity of age and experience — most young people only have friends of the same age — but at the Royal Court the age limit is twenty-five.
One of the students is a journalist; another guy teaches English as a Foreign Language in the morning, and works as a cashier in a betting shop in the afternoon. Several are at university, or have just left, and almost all the others work in television or film, often as researchers, runners or receptionists. Few have children. As usual there are a couple of writers who seem to have trudged around most of the workshops in town, who have existed on the fringes of the writing world, about to ‘make it’, for years. A number will be dithering about whether to give up their jobs in order to concentrate on writing. Everyone seems serious about what they do; I guess they’re aware that their decisions about jobs or professions will affect the rest of their lives. They’re young but they know the possibilities are already closing down.
There will always be those who talk too much and tend to dominate, and there will be others who are shy. It is difficult to hide in the ‘democratic’ circle, but I did teach a hijab-wearing girl who said not one word to me or to anyone else. I wondered for ages whether I should prompt her, but decided that as the workshop was neither a school nor therapy, if she didn’t want to speak, it was up to her. In the end she sent me her work with a letter saying she was grateful that, unlike other teachers, I hadn’t pressed her to contribute. Each week, she posted me a chapter of the novel she was writing at night when her children were asleep, after having ‘written it in her mind’ during the day, holding the words inside her. In a few months she had completed a first draft.
*
Since the early 1980s, when I first became involved with the Royal Court Young People’s Theatre, I have usually been running some kind of writing group somewhere. Why do I do it? When I think about this, which is often, I’m reminded of a remark Stephen Frears made when asked why he taught at Film School. ‘Because no one else ever asks me the questions my students do,’ he replied.
As working writers get older it is easy for them to become cynical or lost in their own minds and projects, refusing contact with anyone unlike them, not wanting to be changed. A workshop is a good place to have conversations about writing, and to hear stories of various kinds. There is also the opportunity to discuss, by way of writing, whatever else the participants might be thinking about: politics, race, parents, love, childhood, creativity, failure, criticism, happiness. These can be serious talks, more concentrated than chats with friends, and less competitive and formal — more usefully rambling — than university seminars. There is also the pedagogical and parental pleasure of seeing someone develop, of watching them find something unexpected and witnessing their surprise or joy, and feeling that somehow you were present when this happened.