I made a mistake.

Months ago, I started posting my book, How to Learn to Love Norwich (When You Really Don’t Feel Like It) before I had actually finished writing it.

As I have already mentioned on more than one occasion, my job, literary translation, wonderful as it can sometimes be, has made it very difficult for me to write my own stuff. It has been the ivy that outcompetes a tree before it has had a chance to grow roots strong and extensive enough to anchor it firmly in the soil and become sturdy in its own right.

Imagine trying to compose a piece of music while the neighbours’ stereos are blaring.

Imagine trying to hear your own voice while other people are speaking in your ears.

I spend an average of eight hours a day channelling another writer’s voice, in another language, processing it in my head and reproducing it in English. By the time, at around 6 or 7 p.m., I save my work and close the lid of my MacBook, I feel mentally washed out. I pick up my beloved Faber Castell fountain pen, but hold the nib over the page for ages, never finding the first word to write. My head feels empty and my heart weary. I am a blank. I feel as though, if I went to look in a mirror, I would see a blurred, foggy image that could or could not be me.

I know of literary translators who juggle their translations and their own writing with great success. How they do this, I have no idea (I wish I knew!), but I am full of admiration for them. They clearly are my betters.

And so I began to post How To Learn To Love Norwich one chapter at a time, because I hoped that, having pledged to do so in writing, the accountability would somehow help me find the space to write and, at the same time, find myself again. Like Maggie the Cat announcing a pregnancy because she hoped it would become reality, I sounded the trumpet for a book I hoped against hope would materialise.

Crazy. Irresponsible. Stupid.

And yet, in a way, it is materlialising. The publicly announced commitment and, above all, the kind, generous, encouraging feedback I received both in the comments and in private helped me focus more on my writing. Only the process took me down an unexpected path, which I have been following since, and I still don’t know where it is leading me.

What was first intended as a lighthearted memoir about my experience of Norwich is now interwoven with elements of local history and geography. In other words, I have embarked on research, something I hadn’t done since my university days and forgotten how much I enjoy. It begins with overhearing a remark, which makes me sign up for a lecture, which sends me hunting for a book then another book then another book, propels me to an archive, drives me to examine a Norman cathedral wall with a small torch in search of ancient graffiti, and before I know it, I am begging to be introduced to palaeographers and, no doubt soon, applying to the British Library to view manuscripts. Meanwhile, books about Norwich history, traditions and quirks are multiplying on my bookcase.

And I am having a whale of a time.

This is all to say, my dear readers, that I apologise most sincerely for not having posted any more chapters from How To Learn To Love Norwich.  A wealth of unimagined material and information has opened up to me, and I need to explore at least some of it to write a better book. This project has broken out of the corral and is galloping down new paths, which fork into more paths. I don’t want to rein it in yet. I want to see where it takes me.

My heartfelt thanks to all those who have sent me kind and encouraging words, either in public comments or in private correspondence. Your feedback has been invaluable to me.  My thanks and, once again, my apologies for leaving you hanging, so to speak. I ask you, please, to bear with me with regard to How To Learn To Love Norwich.

In the meantime, I will resume posting weekly or bi-weekly musings, as I did in the past – something I have missed very much.

To quote Puck,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend

Wishing you all a happy November,

Scribe Doll