Object of desire - Scooping up goodness
"My melon ball is the most precious object I have in my house," says novelist Marian Keyes. "It so little wood and metal thing with ladles on each end. I can scoop out my melons into perfect little balls with it. I eat a lot of melon because I never eat properly anyway. I never have any time to eat a meal." Marian Keyes fourth novel, Last Chance Saloon, is just out. It is another milestone for these phenomenally successful Cavan-Cork- Galway girl now living in County Dublin. Marian starts writing and as soon as she wakes up every morning at 7.30. She writes in bed and she actually puts the pen down for the day at 4.30 pm.
She says all she ever eats is rubbish, except for her melons, the daily scooping out of which has virtually become a ritual. "My mother saw me eating the melons one day and a couple of days later she arrived back with my melon baller," said Marion "I'd never seen one before or. That was about a year ago." It symbolises for me taking time out to do something for myself, eating healthily at least once in the day and also that my mother is still looking after me." Marian believes that we're in the era of "time-poverty". Most of us don't have time for anything any more. She says it might seem the opposite for her as a writer but she's always in demand, receiving requests to write a short story for a magazine, or do an interview, or make an appearance for charity. She always makes time for her charity work and would push it to the top of the queue, though. Everything is that much more hectic because her books are sold in 35 countries around the world.
She doesn't have a set time for doing so but whenever during the day she gets out her melon-baller to scoop out few circles of melons she feels she's treating herself and stepping out of the tyranny of the modern "no time for anything trap." It's typical of Marian Keyes to take something apparently quite ordinary and sprinkle it with some of her magic. Ask her what it is that inspires her to write and she'll say ordinary life and ordinary people. "All I have to do is take a walk down the street and look at people and there is immediately loads of material to write about," she says. "All my characters are flawed people with problems. I'm attracted to persons like that. That's how I feel I am." Marian Keyes on starting writing in 1993 was a law graduate from UCD she was actually devastated when she failed to get the postgraduate course in journalism at what is now called Dublin City University. She was 21 at that time. After that she definitely thought she couldn't write. It was nine years later before she finally attempted trying her hand at writing again. It relieved the boredom of a dull job and fought off an increasing dependence on alcohol. The rest, as they say, is history.
For the next few weeks there'll be a lot of travelling to promote the new book. Then it'll be on to novel number five. Marian's publishers want another story ready for the same time next year. There's pressure but you won't hear Marian Keyes grumbling. She loves writing, even the bad days when you can't get a word right are productive, she says. As for her melon-baller, it sits quietly tucked away in Marian's kitchen ready at a whim to do her bidding!