It’s true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them. – Anne Tyler

 

Well, I am back from the Land of Solitude (my little five-day trip to New Hampshire to stay in a friend’s uninhabited condo and finish my novel)–and let me tell you, Human Being-wise, it was pretty much solitude through and through.

I didn’t know this before, but it turns out that it’s possible to go for five days without even seeing another person, or even the automobile of another person…and still be on the planet Earth. And that you can simply go along not knowing any news other than what you can see out of the window, which was that nuthatches were hopping around on the branches of the white birch trees and that each day the patches of snow on the grass were smaller.

And that after a while your mind stops saying, “Oooh, let’s take a break and see what’s happening over on the Internet!” It can learn to just keep working without a wireless connection, I was relieved to find out.

I spent five days waking up when I wanted and sleeping when I wanted, and I never once had to put on mascara, change my socks, or even comb my hair. I sat on the couch with my laptop hours and hours, getting up every now and then to stretch and dance around the room.  I ate broccoli and spinach and eggs and yogurt because I read in Judy Reeve’s blog, “Ten Daily Habits That Make a Good Writer,”  this wonderful piece of advice:

 

Give your body what it really wants so it can support you. You may think it wants caffeine, sugar, or alcohol, but it really wants broccoli and spinach. Eat healthfully for stamina, good health, and the sensory experience of it. (Notice your carrots when you eat them, their color and crunch. Smell that onion; look closely at its layers and textures.) Eat several small meals throughout the day; begin with a good breakfast.

My children, knowing that my cell phone didn’t have service there and that I wouldn’t make long distance calls on my friend’s phone, called me every day to see if I had gone insane yet. That is exactly how my youngest put it: “Have you gone crazy from the silence?”

“No,” I said. “It’s actually nice. And every now and then the refrigerator motor comes on, so there is some noise.”

“Well, do you talk out loud to yourself while you’re there?”

I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think I’d heard anybody talking.

She said, incredulously, “So it’s five o’clock and this is the first time you’ve heard your own voice all day long? Wow.”

I really hadn’t noticed. The truth was that I felt surrounded by company. All those people who’ve been living in my head–Sam and Jamie and Arley and Christopher–seemed very real and alive to me. And without having to compete with flesh and blood humans, the Internet, and the TV news, they seemed filled with human emotions and problems and shades of nuance I hadn’t noticed about them before.

I could hear their whole lives unfolding before me, told in their own voices…which I know makes people feel uncomfortable when writers start talking that way. I guess people think it’s like, you know “Hearing Voices” in that psychiatrically interesting way, or something. You know, what if soon the voices tell us to pick up machetes and go off in search of the blood of newborn piglets? But it’s not those kind of voices; it’s more like acquring a quiet knowledge about a part of life that you’re only recognizing as you go along, making its connections to these people you’ve named and created.

Maybe that’s why it helps when it’s quiet, New Hampshire Condo-Style Quiet. I felt as though, sitting there in that living room, with the nuthatch hopping around behind them on the birch tree, my characters calmly brought to me everything I needed to know, while I calmly and patiently typed it all out.

Every time I looked up, it seemed four more hours had passed. And then one of the characters might say,  “And now why don’t you take a little break and go eat some broccoli and do a couple of yoga stretches? We’ll wait right here until you get back.”