'Take a walk and get back on your writing track'

 

"Writers displace their anxiety on to the tools of the trade. It's better to say that you haven't got the right pencil than to say you can't write, or to blame your computer for losing your chapter than face up to your feeling that it's better lost.” – Hilary Mantel

Born in England on July 6, 1952 (she died following a stroke in 2022) Mantel was the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice – for the first two novels in her fictional trilogy of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall in the court of Henry VIII.  Both novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, won a basketful of writing awards and were adapted as plays and BBC Masterpiece Theater productions. The third installment, The Mirror and the Light also was long listed for the Booker.  The trilogy has gone on to sell more than 5 million copies.     

Mantel was a great historical writer, biographer and autobiographer writing 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.  Several of her novels were semi-autobiographical in nature including the excellent Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, which drew on her time living in Saudi Arabia.

  

Shortly before her death she said she had perfected a formula for overcoming writer’s block, the bane of many authors:

 

“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise,” she advised.  “Whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem.  Don't make telephone calls or go to a party; (because) if you do, other people's words will pour in where your own lost words should be.”