In which Kevin McCloud tells me how to write
A radical new/old approach to getting out of your own head
If you don’t know what Grand Designs is, then not much of this is going to make sense, so I reckon you should make a cup of tea and and read my blog on reading instead.
Still here?
Well, the other day I was trying to fill my well of British TV before my VPN subscription ran out. I don’t have any money to renew it and so it was a last supper of stuff I don’t really need, but like to watch, because it gives my brain a rest and restores its quota of passive aggressive British compliments.
I’d already watched the excellent Paula Rego documentary on the BBC, so I figured I could reward myself with that laconic heartthrob of everyone’s mum and dad, Kevin McCloud on Grand Designs. Plus adverts. If you only watch UK TV occasionally, the ads are quite an experience in themselves. So many sofas! And food delivery thingies!
Anyway, I’ve always liked Grand Designs, because I, too am an ambitious DIYer, although my projects and bits of houses I’ve built generally look like an AI’s idea of a bad drawing of a porch. In this particular episode, Kev was heading back to his longest ever revisit - some 20 years after the original episode aired, in which a way-ahead-of-their-time couple converted a couple of ancient barns into a family house.
This is the interesting bit which I rewound, and screen-grabbed, and even transcribed.
Kev stumbles into the dark barn and finds the two women sitting there in silence, eyes closed. He beats a retreat and then later asks them what they were up to.
‘What were you two up to just then?’
‘We were meditating.’
‘On what?’
‘The interior of the house.’
‘Uh-huh.’
…
‘Right, yeah. And so you were meditating on the inside of the building?’
‘Yes.’
‘But with your eyes shut.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well we’re doing a meditation where we look back into the past and Sue tunes into times where she’s felt really happy and free and contented. And then we draw that into the present so that she makes the connection with her own experience.’
And then Kevin says this:
‘Well that’s rather interesting, because most people when they have a great vision, when they build their dream often build something that they think is going to make them happy, something they’ve never had, whereas what you’re saying is you focus on things that have made you happy in your past and put them in.’
That’s when I had to pause the programme and sit and have a little think. Because on the one hand, this looks like a ludicrous idea. Sue, our heroine, is sitting in a damp ruin with a dippy-looking meditation teacher and trying to imagine her future bedroom by connecting with things that made her happy in her past.
What, no aspirational vision boarding? No name checks of inspiring designers?
Nope.
This is actually quite a revolutionary idea, and here’s why:
So often when we’re trying to write something—an article like this, a short story, essay or novel—we hold on to a distant vision of how it should feel or read, or look. All of which pushes *it* further away from our actually being able to write the damn thing.
What if, instead, we tried to connect to times in the past when we were truly happy, or having fun, or excited about our writing? What if we used that to pull us through?
For instance, I could give you an example with this very post. I had in my notes to write about self-efficacy and novelty, and feedback. To make it very lofty and knowing. Which is why it sat in my draft folder for days.
So then I decided to do a little meditation on when I was most happy writing. Here are the contenders:
I am aged 5 writing a new Mr Men story with my legs crossed sitting on a scratchy carpet at infant school. Me and my friend Sharon are going to compare stories when we get outside to the playground.
I am aged 24 and as the roving feature writer at a small-town newspaper in NZ, am tasked with inventing the ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ item column every Sunday, as well as reviewing wheelie bin contractors and cocktails in bars. It’s fun and not very important, and there’s no instagram or social media to distract or discourage me.
I am writing my first novel, first draft, with a brilliant mentor and the world feels endlessly exciting.
I did this exercise with kitchens too. My kitchen is currently a large barn with a floor made of dust, no oven, no sink, and a precarious gas hob.
I thought back to kitchens I felt happiest in. My grandma’s kitchen with corner bench seats you could only escape from if you ducked under the table. A farmhouse B&B I stayed at near Avignon where the dining table had been used to slice baguettes on for years. (No, I wasn’t paying - there are some benefits to having been married to a flying winemaker).
I thought ‘I want to have a dining table people feel comfortable using as a bread board’ - because I remember this experience, and I loved it.
I thought ‘I want to write things that make me glad, that make me imagine other people being glad’ - because I remember this experience, and I loved it.
So, over to you. Think back to when you were writing, and it made you glad. Or however it is you like to feel. Forget the shoulds and coulds and just be in the moment. Say a thankyou to Kevin. Amen.