Getting into the writing process …
London-based Imani Thompson won the Vogue new writer’s prize in 2019 as an undergraduate at Cambridge University. Her debut novel, the darkly funny and vicious Honey, triggered a ten-way auction and has already sold in ten languages.
MY DAILY WRITING ROUTINE I’m a completely routine-less person. When I started writing full time I had visions of waking up with the birds, doing my morning pages and writing 500 words by lunch. Instead I tend to spend most of my day procrastinating – emails, cleaning my flat, another coffee – until just enough guilt creeps in for me to sit down at my laptop. Although, the more I write, the more I realise that this procrastination is part of my process. It can take a long time for scenes, characters and storylines to form, and my meandering days give space for this thinking.
MY WRITING SPOT I tend to write all over the place – libraries, coffee shops, trains. But my favourite place is probably the kitchen table late at night when everything is quiet. I wrote most of Honey between 10pm and 1am when my flatmates had gone to bed.
MY WRITING PROCESS When I’m stuck, and can’t figure out what to write next, the book feels impenetrable. On these days it can feel like I’m throwing words at stone. However, I’ve learnt that if I just keep writing at it eventually I’ll hit water, the story will open up and flow again. Those moments may just be my favourite. This, and the first time I get to print a full draft.
THE BOOKS INSPIRING ME NOW Last year I read Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad and I’m still thinking about it. I’m inspired by how she so deftly weaves the personal into the political. In a similar way I loved The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu. These books capture what I’m trying to do with my new work – they observe the political through the domestic while pushing language forms.
I’M WORKING ON My second novel. The story is softly dystopian, exploring the climate crisis, migration and the question of having children in uncertain futures. Recently it’s been many late nights at the kitchen table.
Honey (The Borough Press) is out now.
SEE MORE: How I Write – Laura Evans
