When Doris Lessing rescued me

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/12/doris-lessing-rescued-me-jenni-diski

Version 0 of 1.

The last time I was in St Martin-in-the-Fields was with Doris Lessing, in June 1964. We were at an all-night vigil for Nelson Mandela and the others about to be sentenced at the Rivonia trial. I'd arrived at Doris's house the year before, at the age of 15. She'd been told by her son, Peter, who I'd been at school with before being expelled, that I was stuck in a loony bin where no one knew quite what to do with me. Out of the blue, a letter arrived from Doris, inviting me to go and live with her. She said she had a new house, her first, which she was immensely proud of, and it had a spare room. I'd never met her, actually didn't meet her until the day I turned up at her door.

I knew she was a writer. The Golden Notebook had been published the previous year, and she was about to start the fourth of the Martha Quest series, Landlocked. I'd never read her but the fact that she was a writer meant as much to me as the fact that she was, as she said, "rescuing" me.

I'd wanted to be a writer since I got the idea that each book I read was actually written by someone, that there was such a thing you could do and be in life. Increasingly it seemed like the only thing in the world to be. What luck to be going to live with a real writer. But Doris warned me in her letter about any illusions I might have. "If you think the life of a writer is exciting, you'll be disappointed," she wrote. "I live a very boring life. When I'm writing, nothing else happens here. It won't be much fun, but at least you'll have your own room and perhaps a chance to go back to school."

Doris taught me how to be a writer. I don't mean she gave me lessons, or talked about writing. I can't remember her ever talking about writing, except to mumble occasionally that she was on a very difficult bit at the moment, meaning she was preoccupied, or to bellow as I thumped down the stairs past her closed door "Be quiet. I'm working". I was very impressed with the idea that writing was work. Even now, I always say, "I'm working", rather than "I'm writing", if anyone asks. She suggested books she thought I should read and began my instruction in the history of cinema with visits to the Academy and the National Film Theatre. But that was part of a general education of a teenager. It had nothing to do with me becoming a writer. We never talked about that. I never asked her to read anything I wrote. I learned what it was to be a writer from being around, in the house, day by day, observing her being one.

Her morning started early when she went to the kitchen in her dressing-gown to make a cup of tea. Actually, a pint of tea in a huge blue and white striped mug, which she'd refill every couple of hours. If I happened to be up or on my way to school, she'd nod and I'd say hello, and take off. If I was at home, I'd hear the sharp clatter of keys hitting the platen. The shotgun sound of typing went on continuously for hours. She typed incredibly fast and only infrequently paused, perhaps for a sip of tea or to light a cigarette. When she did, the sudden silence was enormous, and then, whatever I was doing, I'd be on the alert, waiting for the clatter to start up again, rather like sleeping with someone with apnea when they stop breathing, and you hold your breath waiting for them to start again. She thought as she typed. And the most practical help she gave me was when she sent me to learn touch-typing, really so that I'd have secretarial skills, but, I realised quickly, by clattering myself and not having to think about typing, that it enabled the shortest possible distance between the thought in my mind and the fingers getting it on to the page.

While she was writing, she conformed to her warning letter to me. She occasionally had supper with friends, but more or less went into what she referred to as purdah. Writing was the priority, and when something came along to interrupt – including sometimes my doings and misdoings – she dealt with it fast and efficiently, and with frequent sighs. Then she got back to work. When the book was done and sent to her agent, she became immensely convivial for a few weeks. There were suppers and parties, we went to the movies, theatre and picnics in the park. There were novelists and poets among her friends, but at that point Doris was still politically engaged and so were her writing friends. When they all sat around the kitchen table, the talk wasn't about writing, not even about their impatience with agents and publishers, but about day to day local and international politics. And, of course, gossip.

To sum it up, being a writer meant: getting on with it. To Doris, it wasn't a vanity project, but work that she had to do to earn a living and to fulfil her need to be what she was. Being a writer wasn't glamorous and she had no patience with the notion of waiting for inspiration or writer's block. It was all about the act of writing, beginning and finishing and then getting on with the next book, and nothing else. I don't remember her going to launch parties, or giving many interviews, and she never did public readings back then. She wasn't overly interested in reviews, either. She just wrote. Really, I think of her being herself only when she was behind her closed door, working the keys on the typewriter.

Later, as the 1980s came to a close, publishing began to change, and there were obstacles. She began to complain to me that publishers seemed to want her to be an unpaid member of their marketing department, when it was her job to write. Publishing houses started to become parts of conglomerates, imprints were bought and sold, editors came and went. She became much less content with how she was allowed to do her work. At one point, in the late 80s she told me seriously that she'd decided to stop writing altogether. But she couldn't, of course.

The situation for writers is much worse now, but my having lived with Doris and her implacable understanding of what it is to be a writer, has made it easier for me to stick with doing what I want to do, in the way I want to do it. I work quite differently to Doris. She did very fast first drafts, getting the bones of the thing down, and then elaborating the detail though draft after draft. I write what is essentially a single draft, working stuff over and over again, before continuing. It doesn't matter. How you go about the writing is not the main thing, nor even what you write. Knowing that you are a writer and getting on with it, is what has to happen before anything else. Focus is the point. And I will always be grateful to Doris for giving me that insight.