Back when I was finishing writing Gods Behaving Badly, I decided that I needed a stretch of isolation so that I could really focus and immerse myself, so I took myself to Dorset for a month. At the time, my parents' place in Dorset wasn't the house in the town where I am now, but was a cottage at the end of a small village. There was no village after this village, just the path a mile down to the sea. I was there on my own, my only company my sister's cat which she had loaned me and which had a huge abscess on its head that stank of shit. There was no mobile phone reception, no internet, and no TV. The cottage was in a good spot for walks, but it was January, so the daylight hours were short, the weather was terrible, and I was at home most of the time. It was extremely cold and the house didn't have proper central heating. At night I chose one spot on the icy sheets, rolled myself up in the covers, and didn't move. If I strayed off my patch in the middle of the night, the touch of the cold sheets was enough to wake me up. During the day, I kept a coal fire burning and sat at my desk wearing all my clothes, wrapped up in a blanket and with fingerless gloves on, which was the only way that my hands would be warm enough to type. The desk was opposite a window, and three small children would sometimes creep up and try to look at me without getting caught. If I looked up, they would shriek and run away. I realised that I had become the Boo Radley of the village.
I'm Still Here
I'm Still Here
I'm Still Here
Back when I was finishing writing Gods Behaving Badly, I decided that I needed a stretch of isolation so that I could really focus and immerse myself, so I took myself to Dorset for a month. At the time, my parents' place in Dorset wasn't the house in the town where I am now, but was a cottage at the end of a small village. There was no village after this village, just the path a mile down to the sea. I was there on my own, my only company my sister's cat which she had loaned me and which had a huge abscess on its head that stank of shit. There was no mobile phone reception, no internet, and no TV. The cottage was in a good spot for walks, but it was January, so the daylight hours were short, the weather was terrible, and I was at home most of the time. It was extremely cold and the house didn't have proper central heating. At night I chose one spot on the icy sheets, rolled myself up in the covers, and didn't move. If I strayed off my patch in the middle of the night, the touch of the cold sheets was enough to wake me up. During the day, I kept a coal fire burning and sat at my desk wearing all my clothes, wrapped up in a blanket and with fingerless gloves on, which was the only way that my hands would be warm enough to type. The desk was opposite a window, and three small children would sometimes creep up and try to look at me without getting caught. If I looked up, they would shriek and run away. I realised that I had become the Boo Radley of the village.