Jennifer Wilkin Shaw was awarded joint second place in the WforW Gerogina Hawtrey-Woore Award for Independent Authors, Non-Fiction Category with the beautifully written a Testament of Grief.
My morning begins at 7.30 when I switch on Classic FM, stroke two cats, breakfast from a tray, including a pot of Earl Grey, and start reading. The latter, a pre-requisite to writing, is company and gets my brain into gear. My choice is literary biography or rather, ‘other sillies like me’ and often the spouses of those historical literary figures, many of whom were writers themselves: Constance Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Assia Wevill.
I wake up as a writer and now having won a prestigious award I feel recognised and proud. After breakfast I answer emails, usually about my work, plan appointments, future talks, and have a quick audio chat. I begin writing just after 9. At the moment I am working on a new book and fine tuning my third play, getting it ready for a staged read.
Lunch is another chance for reading, part of the writer’s toolbox, and a change of setting, conservatory if warm, my big red sofa if not, and although I’d love to be with the Durrells, chatting and indulging around their huge communal table, at the moment I’m with George Orwell in Paris and London, again! At this point Crumble or Custard may saunter in and lure me into some time wasting, but I resist.
People who create have to be single minded and often alone. I depend on solitude to work, but I do have to balance it with social interaction, otherwise, as a writer living in the sticks, I run the risk of feeling cut off. I remember the first time I wrote; a piece about a lonely rabbit. I was seven and confined myself to my bedroom until I finished. Nothing much has changed! So in the afternoon I routinely go out! A coffee shop, independents mainly, different beans, different days, they expect me!
At Filter Through Coffee Shop, Holsworthy
Generally, people take you seriously as a writer if you sit in a corner, fresh from the shower, with a state of the art Apple Mac and headphones. In a western world that struggles with too much, I value the ‘less is more’ approach. Sitting amongst people, with a small piece of paper, a tiny sharp pencil, correcting the work saved on my phone. My world seems miniature, even my coffee is in a dolls size tea cup a ‘double macchiato’, titchy! But I have produced some of my best monologues this way.
I walk for half an hour to an hour every other day, and after some food shopping I mosey home, meet a good friend for a meal, or sometimes go to the theatre. As a playwright, again this is important, but my default direction is the sofa, a decent glass of red, NCI S, then more corrections. A thoughtful couple of Beeb 2 or 4 programmes, loving Simon Schama’s presentations at the moment, it taps into my other love, Art History, and I am ready for bed; thankful for so many great friends, relatives coming into my life, and the freedom to write.
a Testament of Grief by Jennifer Wilkin Shaw pub Simone Bluestock Publishing
Available as e-book or paperback from: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Testament-Grief-Mothers-Story-Survival/dp/0995594902
www.facebook.com/jennifer.wilkinshaw
www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk