Show Your Working is a regular column exploring how some of our favourite writers get things done. This month, we take a peek into the writing routine of novelist (and KYD publishing director) Rebecca Starford, whose new WWII spy thriller The Imitator is out now from Allen & Unwin. Hear Rebecca discuss her novel on the KYD Podcast, and read an extract here!
Rebecca’s home desk. Image: Supplied
What does your workspace look like?
I recently submitted my PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland, which meant for the past two years I’ve been working at a desk overlooking the beautiful St Lucia campus. It’s a fairly typical open-plan setting, but I found it extremely conducive to my writing. It was quiet, air-conditioned, with good light, and a kitchen for making coffee and lunch. My son goes to one of the childcare centres attached to the university, so I had a good routine around his drop-off and pick-up times.
I do worry we fetishise the ideal work space of writers too much and get distracted from the process of craft itself. I think there are already many barriers to writing: time, other work and commitments, self-doubt. This can become another. Obviously I wouldn’t turn down Agatha Christie’s ‘beach shack’ in Devon, or Rachel Cusk’s home office, but to be honest I’m not sure my practice changes all that much from space to space. I wrote large swathes of The Imitator in libraries and cafes. Writing at UQ felt like a real luxury, and now I feel quite privileged to have a whole room at my house dedicated to my work. It’s not a space that will ever appear in the The Design Files: my window overlooks our carport and the road, my old dog’s bed takes up a large part of the room, and my cats have their breakfast in here…but it is a place where I can work. Time has become the most precious commodity to me, and like for most people there never seems to be enough of it.
Time has become the most precious commodity to me, and like for most people there never seems to be enough of it.
My desk tends to reflect my current state of mind. I’m aiming for controlled chaos. Every couple of weeks I do a big tidy, and this clears the mind for a while, but it’s soon messy again with papers, notes, books. I’m not a particularly tidy person by nature, but I also hate clutter, so I’m constantly battling against myself.
Rebecca’s university desk. Image: Supplied
What sort of software and hardware do you use to get your work done?
I take initial research notes in the field by hand, and then transcribe them later. Everything else I type up, print and keep in folders marked by category. For instance, for The Imitator, I had an ‘MI5’ file, a ‘Key Texts’ file (which included notes and quotes from reading I’d done in preparation for the first draft), a ‘Clothes/Food’ file (to make late 1930s clothing, and food and drink as authentic as possible), and a ‘Settings’ file, where I had photos, notes and other bits and pieces I’d collated about the different locations I visited, which include London, Oxford, Onibury in Shropshire, and Lewes. This research was then baked in to the initial drafts of the manuscript, and later as I did revisions I referred to these files to pepper passages with extra detail, or to ensure particular features were as factually accurate as possible.
Describe your writing practice?
I’m morning person—and definitely a morning writer! I get up early, check emails and have breakfast, and I try to be at the desk by around 8am. I write until midday, with a break each hour for about ten minutes. I can’t write much beyond that session. After lunch, I do other freelance and KYD work, and then I clock off at around four o’clock. I read in the evenings and on weekends, but when I’m working on a new project I avoid reading anything tangential to the project as I find it distracting.
I know if I’ve got something to work with, I can eventually piece things together with time and perseverance.
I don’t really edit as I go along, but my first few drafts are very messy and very bad. My writing requires so much rewriting, so much padding out and then so much stitching together, that I’m never much worried about the quality of those early drafts. I know if I’ve got something to work with, I can eventually piece things together with time and perseverance. For The Imitator, I had a loose idea of plot before I began writing as it was based on real events, but I didn’t do much planning beyond that. This was slightly challenging when I had later to pull together complex elements of the plot and make them (hopefully!) convincing to the reader, but this understanding about where the story was headed only revealed itself to me through the writing itself.
Has your writing practice changed over the years? If so, how?
I’m not sure my writing practice has changed much over the years. Routine has always been central to my work—without a routine, I just can’t pull a project together. The conditions around my writing are now different, however: I wrote my first book, Bad Behaviour, when I was working full-time as an editor while also running KYD, so that kind of workload was impossible to sustain long-term, and I did feel burnt out soon after publication. Now I am fortunate enough to build writing into my freelance working day, so I’m less reliant on finding time outside these hours, though there are still times when I’ve had to schedule work on the weekends to meet deadlines, though I try to avoid that as it gets me down.
Routine has always been central to my work—without a routine, I just can’t pull a project together.
How do you encourage inspiration to strike?
I’m not sure I’ve had writer’s block before, but I’ve certainly hit obstacles in various projects that at times felt almost impossible to break through. Usually this is because I needed a break from the project after working on it too intensely. A fresh perspective can be so difficult. So time away from the work—and literally from the desk—helps me immensely. I swim laps at the pool a few times a week, and that clears the mind and allows me to reflect on different aspects of my work. Having someone to talk about your writing can be useful, too—whether that’s in a writing group, or another writer whose opinion you value and trust. That’s often a special relationship, and one that can produce wonderful outcomes in your work. I also talk a lot to my partner about various stages of my manuscripts, chatting through what is proving especially tricky. We took many, many walks through the park fleshing out the ending to The Imitator.
Rebecca will be launching her novel at Avid Reader in Brisbane on Monday, 15 February at 6.30pm. This is a free event in-person and via Zoom, though bookings are required.
The Imitator is available now from your local independent bookseller.
