Why I Love to Be Alone
Do you like to be alone? I know it’s not true that all writers are introverts, that there are those who like to write in teams, or who do their writing in busy cafés or at the kitchen table, enjoying the background chatter of family life. For me, though, being alone is one of the attractions of the writer’s life. Over the past few years, my desire for solitude went from a mild preference to almost a physical craving.
My colleagues in my last day job were an admirable group of people. They worked hard all week helping others, then spent the weekend running sports teams or going to cultural events or organising big social gatherings. I began to dread the inevitable, “What did you do at the weekend?” When I said I had been reading books and writing them, their expressions ranged from confusion to pity.
I even considered inventing a visit to a local tourist attraction or a family birthday party, not for my sake but for theirs. (I had a similar experience in primary school where I was one of those rare children who was exhorted by their teacher to read less after she read my journal. From then on, I wrote elaborate accounts of tree climbing and skipping and building dens, my earliest, if not my finest, attempts at fiction.)
It struck me during those work conversations that there was a big disconnect between how my colleagues saw me and how I saw myself. They probably thought of my life as rather dull, monochrome, empty of joy, while for me solitude opens up a world of magic and infinite possibilities, not bounded by the assumptions of others. So much of daily life is about skating the surface, conforming to expectations, compromising for the cohesion of the team. I felt like I had to go through the day being someone else and that my real life was squeezed into the corners.
I’m now writing full time and able to enjoy sustained, uninterrupted periods of creativity. I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. Many argue that office life, with its constant distractions and interruptions, short deadlines and shifting objectives, is bad for all kinds of work and I found it quite draining. Now I have the space to reflect, concentrate and make connections. To go to sleep wondering how to solve a knotty problem and to wake up somehow seeing that a conversation I had years ago and a book I read last week and a thought I had on waking are between them the key to the hole in my plot. (And sleep is crucial too – that’s a whole other article.)
I know some friends worry about me. While they haven’t quite resorted to staging an intervention with cupcakes, they do ask me, in a bewildered tone, what I do all day. Work, to them, provides structure and identity and they think life would be empty without it. I feel the opposite – how is it easier putting all your energy into someone else’s project than your own?
It’s hard to say that you’re happier without the company of your former colleagues without sounding rude. Saying you want to be alone isn’t considered healthy in our society. It’s socially acceptable to turn down an invitation by saying that you’re going to another event, but not that you’d rather be home alone. Some people will be offended that you’d rather “do nothing” as they see it.
This isn’t to belittle loneliness. I am lucky to have a supportive partner so I’m not alone all the time. Equally, there have been times in my life when I’ve been surrounded by people and felt very lonely. I also feel deeply connected with the world of books and literature and particularly the book blogger and indie author communities.
In my new crime novel Brand New Friend, Paolo Bennett is a student who dreams of travel as a means of opening up the world, experiencing a richer life than he feels his parents had. He achieves his dream, becoming a foreign correspondent – though for reasons that become clear during the book, his ability to travel has now been severely curtailed.
When I was young I also wanted to travel. I used to scrimp and save, not really living in the moment because all my energy was directed to that future time when life would be fun and exciting and that sense that something was missing would magically disappear. And it was fun and exciting for a while but I eventually realised that the something that was missing was travelling with me, like a cumbersome piece of luggage. It was there as well in the way I was drawn to friends who were creative – I didn’t really know any writers then, but I knew a lot of people who were musicians and visual artists and actors. It took me a while to work out I was trying to find something in them which I didn’t think I had in myself.
When people look at me now and think my life is dull, I don’t generally bother trying to explain that it feels richer and fuller than it ever has. In those moments when apparently nothing is happening, when I’m sitting alone, staring at my monitor (or, more likely, out the window) I’m actually living the most exciting life I can imagine.
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About Brand New Friend
Friend. Liar. Killer?
BBC foreign correspondent Paolo Bennett is exiled to a London desk – and the Breakfast sofa – when he gets a call from Mark, a friend from university in eighties Leeds. Paolo knew Mark as a dedicated animal rights activist but now a news blog has exposed him as an undercover police officer. Then Mark’s former police handler is murdered.
Paolo was never a committed campaigner. He was more interested in women, bands and dreaming of a life abroad. Now he wonders if Mark’s exposure and his handler’s murder might be linked to an unexplained death on campus back when they were friends. What did he miss?
Paolo wants the truth – and the story. He chases up new leads and old friends. From benefit gigs and peace protests, to Whatsapp groups and mocktail bars, the world has changed, but Mark still seems the same.
Is Mark the spy who never went back – who liked his undercover life better than his own? Or is he lying now? Is Paolo’s friend a murderer?
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Kate Vane writes (mostly) crime fiction. Brand New Friend is her fourth novel.
She lived in Leeds for a number of years where she worked as a probation officer. She now lives on the Devon coast.
Find Kate
Website: https://katevane.com
Twitter: @k8vane
Facebook: k8vane
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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