Yesterday I got back from an amazing weekend in London.
Taking the trip at the instigation of my friend Tim, who was playing in a show with his band FourPlay and their special gues Neil Gaiman over the weekend I took the opportunity to have a long weekend. Boy, it was worth it!
Last week I was feeling flat, stressed, anxious and overwhelmed. I hurt my back earlier in the week and was struggling to sleep. But, unfortunately I still had heaps of work to do, so I couldn’t just rest and get better. It made for one rather unhappy Simon.
The weekend away made me realise once again how important holidays are. Working as a writer I find that I often end up working all the time — I take my computer wherever I go and it is hard to stop myself from working on that next piece, or editing my books. But just having a few days where I didn’t do any work was amazing for my mental health and enthusiasm. I got to just chill in London — I went to a couple of shows, wandered through the streets, had some beers, went to the Welcome Collection exhibition and met with a few friends. I completely and utterly cleared my head.
I also remembered one other valuable thing — the importance of getting away from my damn computer! Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely go anywhere without my laptop. I almost feel naked without it. I took it to London but after some indecision about it I finally decided I was better locking it away than lugging it around.
For just this one weekend, it was bliss. Not being able to use my computer I didn’t end up sitting at a cafe feeling guilty because I wasn’t writing that piece I needed to get done. There was nothing I could do but read or watch people go by. That was lovely!
And in doing so I realised the power, again, of the pen. Instead of taking my computer around I took my notebook (I always take my notebook wherever I go) and with a bit of a clear head and some inspiration from the FourPlay concert I ended up writing three and half short stories in my notebook. I was that guy who sat late and night with a beer writing things down while everyone else got drunk on their Friday nights. But it felt good. I got away from the constraints of “work” and got to express my creativity in whatever way I wanted. And I came out, I think, with some good stuff. I will try and go over them sometime this week and see if there’s anything worth popping up on here (or sending elsewhere).
So that was London, and a good lesson about getting away, not just from my city, but from my workspace as well. Being creative means being creative about how you go about sometimes, and I learnt that this week.
A couple of other notes.
First, if you ever get the chance you should go and see FourPlay play — particularly if they are teamed up with Neil Gaiman. The concert was just fantastic — a mixture of great original tunes, covers and spoken word backed up with some amazing string music. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. I also hear they are working on a new and exciting project, so let’s be excited for that!
Second, I also went to the Welcome Collection in particular to see their Institute of Sexology Exhibition. It was excellent. I haven’t been to a museum so creative and well put together in quite a while. Not only were the exhibitions interesting, interactive and informative, but they had regular tours as well as workshops on creative writing and more. And it was all for free! I know I will be back and I think you should head there too.
So London! As I said on Facebook, for me it is still not quite as awesome as Berlin (my favourite city in the world), but it comes pretty damn close!