“Be Here Now” – the slogan a friend wore on his t-shirt way back in the 1980s. It was all a bit mystical and Zen at the time, a call to live in the present and appreciate the world around us but it is just as valid today. Perhaps it is even more so. Then there were no mobile phones, let alone smart phones. The Internet was a plaything for genuine technologists and our idea of a computer was a ZX Spectrum with 16K of RAM (yes – that is kilobytes) and the wonder of 8- colour graphics on a portable TV set. The great distraction was the Sony Walkman, a portable cassette player with ear-muff style headphones and a deeply irritating metallic jangle that affected all around. We became accustomed to seeing people nodding their heads and humming tunelessly as they ambled along and there is something wonderful about having music playing in your head but it does set up a barrier between the user and the rest of the world.

What has this to do with writing, you may wonder. Well, I’m quite happy to use my I-pod to build my own world in my mind, especially on those long, cold winter mornings when I’m outside wondering why I have dogs. Very comforting and distracting, but not good for seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling what is around. Most of the time I walk and look, listening to the wind or the birds, seeing the trees move and watching people as they pass by, each with their own world and their own story. When I get to my desk I have pictures and fragments of sound in my head, scraps I can weave together to try and create a living world within my novels.

I was walking through our lovely Valley Gardens a few months ago with my niece and we stopped in a secluded area just to listen to the birds singing. She commented on how peaceful it was compared to Tokyo where she lives and I agreed. In fact I waxed a bit lyrical about the breeze, the rustle of the trees, the colours and ripples in the water by the bridge, the scent of the newly cut grass… She gave me that hard stare nieces can give their aunts and said, “How do you notice all that? It must be really confusing seeing everything all the time”. I was surprised. I thought everyone noticed this stuff but apparently not. Maybe that is one of the things that makes a writer, this awareness of the world. I am “Here, Now”, and I could not do my job unless I were. The singing railings and murmuration of starlings from “The Drowners”? I experience them every week. My dogs become Mouse and Mickey and around me I hear fragments of conversations I can give to Ada or Lauren or Tom. So my advice to any would-be writer is to train your eyes, and ears – every sense in fact – because once you are open to what is around, you can take your readers with you into a world or a time of your own creating and it will be real to them.

“Be Here Now” and so will they.