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– ANAKANA SCHOFIELD – my arm, up and down, chop, chop, lay it out for him like the hard lumps of resistant sausage it is. No, no, no, it’s not that. It’s (chop) early childhood loss, (chop) watching man get put into hole in the ground, (chop) (him: who? Me: my father), (extra chop cos interrupted) thanatophobia, (chop) the process is death anxiety, every time I write I am buried, it’s reburial, wham, wham, wham. But you claw your way out? No. I don’t. It’s not that active, more that some vague blip in the earth probably caused by fracking in Alaska or a frisky wolf merely affords a pin-sized entry point for air. Small oxygen. ‘It reminds me of a story . . .’ and he’s off. See, fiction absolves. BURIAL BY PROCESS: DISPOSAL These are the dull mechanics. The mechanics of disposal whether it’s onto the page or beneath the soil, there’s still a casting off. Polite form involves ritual. Publishing is a ritual, if you are afforded this privilege or trial (perspective depending). It seems again there is a further replication that happens. There’s the ritual of writing. I suppose it’s a utilitarian act of going to work. The difference is with 144
page 163
– The Difficult Question – writing or any artistic gesture (unless you are contracted, which strangely for me in this instance I am) no one is beckoning you. No one says you must. It is you who must. Because there are so many books, so very many writers (now) it could be assumed that the world would wish you wouldn’t. Stop with the books, we’re drowning in books. The requirement is to get on with it. For me it’s not stagnation. It’s certainly not writer’s block. It’s burial. I dig into a very large hole and then manage to bury myself. I never recall any exit. I just recall confusion. Protracted confusion. I never recall exiting that hole. Except I exit it at some point because otherwise there would be no books and I have produced books. Of course as I am typing to you I am still in the hole. Inside that hole or these repeated visits to the metaphorical grave, I become very lost. This isn’t just an indulgent handy metaphor. I never know physically where my novel is. I lose chunks of it. I chronically make new documents and then forget their names. I print them and lose them all over my apartment. I think I may have written 1200 pages for one of my novels. There are boxes of papers, manuscripts, notebooks that attest to it. The reason I know this disposal/burial process takes place is because after the books are published I can’t find certain lines in them. Between the two novels I had a brief concern I had used the word lemon-rind in both. I searched for the instance of it. I had not. I had probably buried the repetition in one of 145

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– ANAKANA SCHOFIELD –

my arm, up and down, chop, chop, lay it out for him like the hard lumps of resistant sausage it is. No, no, no, it’s not that. It’s (chop) early childhood loss, (chop) watching man get put into hole in the ground, (chop) (him: who? Me: my father), (extra chop cos interrupted) thanatophobia, (chop) the process is death anxiety, every time I write I am buried, it’s reburial, wham, wham, wham.

But you claw your way out? No. I don’t. It’s not that active, more that some vague blip in the earth probably caused by fracking in Alaska or a frisky wolf merely affords a pin-sized entry point for air. Small oxygen.

‘It reminds me of a story . . .’ and he’s off. See, fiction absolves.

BURIAL BY PROCESS: DISPOSAL

These are the dull mechanics. The mechanics of disposal whether it’s onto the page or beneath the soil, there’s still a casting off. Polite form involves ritual. Publishing is a ritual, if you are afforded this privilege or trial (perspective depending).

It seems again there is a further replication that happens.

There’s the ritual of writing. I suppose it’s a utilitarian act of going to work. The difference is with

144

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