Karen Wilson offers a snapshot of Edinburgh through recently arrived eyes.

There's nothing more satisfying than ambling panda-eyed towards the shops for breakfast things, against shoals of be-suited office workers.

Today we have a hard day of , er..., watching shows and then writing about them, while they probably have to look at graphs or perhaps go on a course to learn how to look at graphs more productively.

WENT to see Natalie Marchant at the Sage last week. Here is my review from the Journal:

A LYRICIST for 30 years, Natalie Merchant has got plenty of beautiful words tumbling from her lips tonight, but few are her own.

Spent a wonderful evening at The Sage last week being treated to a display of virtuoso songwriting by one of the best in the business.

I appreciate this may be construed as meaning Ray Davies was actually writing songs in front of our very eyes. To clarify: he was merely performing them. But he was very good.

Here's my review from the Chron...

Went to see a rather good gig featuring woman-of-the-music-moment Laura Marling.
Here is my review from the hallowed pages of The Journal.

Popped down to The Cluny on Friday night, to see Cumbria's finest, WIld Beasts. Here's my review...

This was like nothing I've ever seen.

Over the years I've amassed several bookcases of 'How to Write' guidebooks. Books with titles like 'So You Want To Be A Writer?' or 'Writing: A Step by Step Guide'. Generally they've all been very helpful. But there seems to be a gaping hole in an otherwise chock-full marketplace for a book that gets into logistics. Maybe it should be called the logistical guide to writing. Or the 'I work full-time so how do I fit in my novel?' guide to writing. Exercises designed to drag inspiration out of the daily grind are all very well. But can someone please tell me how to build a writing career amidst the metropolis that is my 9-5 job, mountains of housework, kids' schedules, husband's workload, overflowing inbox, etc etc etc??

I haven't arrived at this destination yet, but I'm on my way. If I ever get there, I shall write a book called something along the lines of 'The Mum's Guide to Writing'. There may well be a few writing exercises in there, but, more helpfully, there will be practical stuff. Like, here's how to write despite the demands of domesticity (get a cleaner). Like, here's how to write despite spending all day, every day, running from pillar to post (learn to write while running). But I'm curious to know how other people do it. If a book ever hits Amazon on how other successful writers managed to carve their profession into the rockface of the quotidian, I'll be buying it. Until then, I've a long way to go....

Have you heard Oh My God, Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem? Maybe you'd like to.

Many of the major literary funding bodies offer a 'time to write' award, which is a lump sum of money intended to permit a writer to take time off from their normal day job in order to hack away at their novel/script/poetry collection. New Writing North, the Society of Authors and, once upon a time, the Arts council all facilitate such awards. In other words, such kindly funding bodies recognise that (a) the emerging writer most likely has a day job to foot the bills and (b) writing takes up a lot of time.

Such awards are absolutely brilliant - if you can get them. If not, you are faced with a quandary. Either find a way to juggle writing with a full time job, family etc., or don't. Women in particular are faced with this dilemma as family pressues sap time, energy, and inspiration - indeed, an alarming number of female authors have commented on the pressure to choose between 'a child or a book.'

So, how to write AND do everything else that life requires, if a 'Time to Write' award is not forthcoming? Does it really take a nomadic lifestyle with a generous patron to produce that stellar screenplay? I'd bet it helps. But there's also an argument that such stresses and pressures can be beneficial to the writing life. One author - who continues to hold down a 9-5 day job despite wracking enough booksales to focus on writing full time - swears by the rigors of an extra-literary profession to keep the creative juices flowing. An American screenwriter friend of mine found a month-long stint at a writer's retreat - during which she had nothing else to do except write, sleep and eat (a dream, right?) - shockingly unproductive. Without the ebb and flow of the daily grind, she said, her writing became too isolated, too stale. It's well known that Seamus Heaney translated Beowulf at a rate of four lines a night. I've read countless interviews with authors who profess to have written their novels during long commutes - to and from their day job. Admittedly, I wrote one book while in the bath.*

Despite what my American screenwriter friend says, I still dream about days without laundry, dishes, commuting, homework, etc etc - days that are wiped clean of every demand so that I can devote myself wholly to writing. But, by the looks of things, it ain't gonna happen for the next 25 years. That doesn't mean to say that I won't be writing. I'll be writing where and when and how I can. The discipline isn't just about seizing snatches of free time to put pen to paper - the real discipline is using time that isn't free as thinking time, researching time, filtering overheard conversations and experiences at home and in the work place to use as material for dialogue, scenes, and characters.

There IS time. Award or no award.

* That was a long bath, I hear you say. Clarification: I wrote a little everytime I had a bath.

Image credit: .: Philipp Klinger :.

Good God: look at Lyle Lovett's hair in the video for Walk Through The Bottomland - it's magnificent!

(A duet with Emmylou Harris must be a rite of passage for male country singers, I think: by my reckoning, Lyle Lovett joins Gram Parsons, Ryan Adams, Elvis Costello, John Denver, Neil Young and Willie Nelson to name but a few.)