Show Your Working: Emily Clements

What sort of software and hardware do you use to get your work done?

Just Microsoft Word. It’s unwieldy and a nightmare to try and patch things together—you start with one document that branches into three documents that need a folder and then a subfolder or five that you end up wasting time trawling through, trying to find that one paragraph you set aside weeks ago and have finally found a home for. I’ve tried Scrivener, I know there are more intuitive programs out there, but my brain is rusted in its ways. I wrote The Lotus Eaters on a pirated version of Word that, when I tried to change a tab setting, adjusted only every other paragraph—some indented at 1.3, some at 1.5, some with double tabs that started at random. Terrified the whole sloppy mess would send my publisher running for the hills, I went through 300 pages and manually pulled the little tab arrow across for each and every wayward paragraph to make sure all the indents were lined up. It took hours. I cried. And yet, I will never use anything else.

Describe your writing practice?

I can go months without writing, feel myself getting wavy round the edges, and then without warning find myself neck-deep in creative juices, writing six hours a day, feverishly, to the detriment of all other aspects of my life. Editing is a bit steadier. Even then, it’s all too easy to go back and tinker with what you’ve already got on the page, telling yourself that moving things around and admiring them is also writing. I try not to edit as I go because if I give myself an ‘editing day’, it’s usually to put off writing something that I know is going to be hard to write, that I know will at first come out stodgy and long-winded, that I won’t be proud of until I work it and rework it. The difficulty of the process fills me with dread—dread that this is proof I’m not a writer, I’m an intruder on the art. Predictably, these passages are always the most memorable.

Has your writing practice changed over the years? If so, how?

In high school, I got into the habit of writing when my family had gone to sleep—I wouldn’t have to stake out my claim to the computer and there was less danger of a sibling looking over my shoulder. Sometimes I’d write my way into dawn, grey-faced, and wouldn’t stop until absolutely everything I needed to say had been said. I wrote from a sense of urgent angst that is hard to replicate as a well-adjusted adult. I still write at night, even though I now have the luxury of my own laptop. Instead of junk food, I’m usually surrounded by empty mugs, sodden tea bags and the occasional apple core. What has changed most is that source of creativity. Where once I could quite easily skim from a brimming well of rage and pain, now I have to dig deeper, look further. Ultimately, this is a good thing—but I do miss the old fire sometimes.

Where once I could quite easily skim from a brimming well of rage and pain, now I have to dig deeper, look further. Ultimately, this is a good thing—but I do miss the old fire sometimes.

How do you encourage inspiration to strike?

I like the phrasing of this, like baring your wrist to an adder. I’ve been grappling a fair bit with inspiration since The Lotus Eaters came out. I’ve found myself with a lot of time and little inclination to do anything with it. When I push myself to write, my limbs turn to lead even as my heart is drained of all its weight. To be honest, even this column has been difficult. I don’t know how much of the problem is me and how much is the pandemic. To this end, I’ve received quite a bit of advice. My brother, a uni tutor, sent me a Noam Chomsky interview and told me to email him a 250-word summary on the subject of motivation. Mum told me just to start somewhere—when I call, she always asks how ‘the research’ is going. My partner gently reminds me that I will feel better once I have a project. What I find most helpful is the validation inherent in these suggestions—that writing is, in fact, what I should be doing. In spite of everything. Because of it.

The Lotus Eaters is available from your local independent bookstore.