Birmingham Book Festival: The Spring Thing

The day started out quite well; the normally crowded two-carriage train from the Fens to Birmingham was waiting at Leicester station and there were plenty of seats. Things took a wrong turn when the first taxi driver at New Street station denied all knowledge of the Birmingham Conservatoire and asked me to leave the cab. The second driver was more patient, asking another driver for directions and gently explaining to me when we arrived at the Conservatoire that I hadn't needed a taxi at all as we were just at the top end of New Street. But it was cold and pouring with rain and had I walked, I would have been soaked through which would not have done at all as the Adrian Boult Hall was freezing. It puzzles me that the event organisers did not give more thought to the well-being of the audience, or delegates, or whatever we were. The tickets were expensive, yet the toilets were blocked, there was no lunch and the queues for coffee were long. Worst of all, two of the 'headline' acts had cancelled. A nightmare for the organisers, certainly and they had done well to find replacements but I would have liked to have known, so that I could have made a choice whether it was worth going at all. For me, a wasted day is worse than a wasted ticket, especially as trains, taxis, lunch add extra cost.
During the first session, I became sure about my ability (or lack of) to process aural information. This was a persistent problem for me at school but I have only recently become aware of the problem again at Writers' Club where members read their scripts aloud. I can only process what I'm hearing if I visualize the words and then 'read' them in my mind, which is hard work. Consequently I stop listening. As a psychologist, I pose three hypotheses for this problem: a slight miswiring in the brain, a lack of experience of being read to as a child and a difficulty controlling my own thoughts, which tend to crowd in if my eyes aren't occupied. I suspect there is a problem in all three areas but the latter is the worst offender. During aural processing I start to 'ruminate', which can be more colloquially described as 'wool gathering.' Gradually, my mood darkened, so that by the time we broke for lunch it was close to its' 'Black Death' phase. I had tried to listen to some pleasant readings from some no-doubt well written books but I realised that there is absolutely nothing new to say about the process of writing. With minor variations, it's a fairly samey process for everyone. What also deeply irritates is hearing about the trials and tribulations of authors who have all day to write. What can possibly be useful or worthwhile about having to listen once more to the 'tyranny' of getting up in the morning to face the keyboard, the excitement of the postman, the staring out of the window, the guilt over not starting to write until three o'clock in the afternoon. I say to them, 'get over it'! Many of us fight to squeeze writing into corners of our lives but still think of ourselves as writers. P.D James worked full time as a civil servant until she retired.
I went for lunch in a dark, brutal shopping mall cynically called 'Paradise Forum.' I haven't tried Nando's before but their mushroom and halloumi cheese wrap was delicious; warm and spicy and mood enhancing. Outside the mall, the rain had stopped and I knew where I was. To my left, the Birmingham Central Library and facing me the art gallery. I was feeling better; still grey but reflective. I was a student in Birmingham in 1975 and the Central Library had been my safe haven in a city that was reeling from the New Street bombings. At the time, I hadn't noticed that the architecture of the library was so grim, even though I was in deep culture shock from having left behind the ancient streets and crashing, north sea beaches of St. Andrews to learn how to teach in Birmingham schools, where our tutors told us there was nothing they could say about behaviour management, it was 'sink or swim'. I sank.
I did go back after lunch to hear Stuart Maconie, as his radio show with Mark Radcliffe is my companion when I'm working in the evenings. He was a good raconteur, full of stories and humour and not much about the writing process, except the advice to be on your own, watch, listen and make notes.
After that I left, taking my visual processing skills first to a cafe, where the people interacting around me were ten times more interesting than anything I had heard during the day and then across to the art gallery 'disguising misery as aesthetic appreciation' (Salley Vickers: Dancing Backwards). I'm ashamed to say that I didn't stay for Carol Ann Duffy but with my new understanding, what was the point? I own a book of her poetry I can read whenever I like. Besides, I couldn't wait to get home to my warm house, my flushing toilet and my own novel.