You Let Me In

by Lucy Clarke

People don’t understand that it’s not falling asleep that’s the problem. It’s staying asleep. If only there was just a switch for my mind, some way of turning it off, or at least turning down the volume; instead, as the night draws deeper, worries begin to stir, stretch, wake. Harmless, innocuous happenings take on a different shape – the shadows they cast, stretching.

The moment I started to write, I fell in love with it.

life and death circle each other.

My house is my sanctuary: uncluttered, ordered. Everything has its place – and that gives me a sense of security, of calm. It’s the rest of my life that’s in chaos.

‘The best story to tell – the only story to tell – is the one living within you, inhabiting you, insisting that it be heard.’

‘A novel is about truth: both seeing the truth and writing the truth.’

You don’t always get the life you’d imagined.’

‘Life shouldn’t be reduced to filtered images and captions, should it? It’s about birth and death and that beautiful, brutal stretch of time between.’

There are moments in life when a situation or an individual that has previously felt known to you will swing round and surprise you so completely that it knocks the very breath from your lungs. Those moments – if they come – alter you, cause you to doubt yourself, your judgement, your safety.

‘Inspiration gets you off the starting blocks, but to make it to the finish line you need tenacity, determination, and grit.’

“And though she be but little, she be fierce.” A Midsummer’s Night Dream