My writing day: Paul Read
Young children, a day job, two broken legs... nothing stands in the way of writing for debut author Paul Read, he tells Lynne Hackles
Paul Read wishes his writing day could begin the moment he wakes but his day job takes precedence throughout most mornings. ‘I’m currently living in Italy,’ he says. ‘I read fiction, in English, during my morning commute because I’m too self-conscious to write with people around me, even if it is in a foreign language. I try to read as varied a selection of novels as possible in a range of genres from different eras. Writers should be omnivorous – to be anything else risks stagnation, I feel.
‘Once work is over for the afternoon, I take myself to one of the three different parks in Naples and sit in the shade with my laptop, or visit a café if the weather is bad (spoiler alert: the weather’s rarely bad) and write for around two hours with no internet connection or any of the other distractions I may find at home. There’s minimal procrastination in my writing time these days and I find I’m able to kick straight on. Those two hours often feel like five minutes. If it’s been a couple of days since writing anything I’ll reread the previous work to familiarise and reacquaint myself. I enjoy editing far more than writing the first draft, which is binge-written in quite a fast timeframe, usually over a summer.