On wanderlust and the need for space.

Is it just me or are all writers (artists) driven by a need for experience, understanding and change?

Having resided in Spain for three years now (four separate addresses!) I got that crazy itch for movement, new shores, new people and traditions...more things to write about and dissect/devour when I have a plethora of ideas, characters and events still wanting to burst onto the page! There´s a time and a place, but they´re getting impatient. And so was I.

I am descended from gypsies: my grandma lived in a gypsy caravan up until she died at the age or 100 and something (the details here change depending on who you speak to). Like my father I am very creative and suffer from wanderlust, but is it to do with genetics or creativity that makes you thirst for more?

The wanderlust comes alongside a sort of freedom and anonymity also. The need for space to think, breath, just be. Without being something to someone for a little while. and so like a special gift came a Spanish bank holiday (Thursday 28th Feb) where everything is closed and you are forced to relax. And so...the result?

I had a fantastic writing day this week in Estepona - a little town in the Costa del Sol that is still Spanish. Just me, my notebook and some money had a date with the beach - we laid on a bench outside a church atop the hill and constructed a poem on wanting always what is out of reach called Restless. We ate pata negra ham in plaza de los flores, and some unknown spiky seafood in a boat on the shore which is used for barbecuing fish during the summer whilst composing a poem entitle periwinkle.

We also chatted to a clearly mad one legged man who believes he writes scripts for Stephen Fry and started out with an English accent and ended up with a Glaswegian one. interesting... (an hour of my life, a cheap sangria and three poems later...could one be called Mad Mike?) I gave him my website address - he may read this. Who knows? But that little bit of solitude and freedom to let the mind wander seems to have cured the wanderlust for now.

Kind of. I have the basis of around 10 poems from that day and so this week I am going to stay in Estepona town in a hostal and write in the mornings before work (pre 8am), evenings after work (post 6pm) and eat tapas/walk on the beach in the breeze somewhere in between. Some people I know think this is bizarre behaviour - but surely it keeps you grounded? I´m lucky to have two very understanding cats and one extremely impatient yet similar boyfriend who is happy to acknowledge my whims to keep me sane. Hopefully, he gets a good read out of it at the end.

But tell me - is it just me or are all writers driven by a need for experience, understanding and change? I would like to know.

My writing and reasons

My reason for writing is, as all who write will tell you, twofold: I love it and I feel compelled.

I have a strong recollection of being laughed at when I openly declared “I want to be a poet, an artist or a teacher” to adults on the rough council estate where I grew up. In Southbank, Middlesbrough, most adults have never worked a day in their lives and have no compunction about it.

I dabbled with art but chose not to follow that path, preferring the enticing words of Aeschylus and Ovid over the call of smeared paint and pastel dust (which I still cover myself in from time to time; words and art are inseparable).

I taught in English schools for five years before leaving native shores and, finally, settling in Andalucia. After abandoning a failed marriage I somehow ended up ricocheting myself into a more familiar yet chaotic world and my need to write has reawakened as my life has settled into this happy maelstrom.

In the last year, I have been overjoyed with my progress; I’ve had workshops with Ruth Padel, Tobias Hill, Chris Hamilton Emery; seen Tony Harrison, AL Kennedy and Ali Smith in their finery, amongst others. I spent an intense week with The Blue Nose poets Mario Petrucci and Sue Hubbard in a charming Andalucian village, and I’ve written two draft zero novels; each in the space of a month.

My website has grown as submissions have been accepted by The Beat, 3am, Dogmatika, Six Sentences and Savage Manners. My understanding has doubled as I’ve received rejections and suggestions from Mslexia, Straight from the Fridge and Wolf etc.

But the point is; there’s no way I could get jaded.

May many more big shouts of NO and snippets of reasons why pile into my stuffed Spanish letterbox and guide me.