Margaret Drabble

When I tell people I love swimming in the Ladies’ Pond there are two reactions. The first: “Ugh, isn’t it muddy/dangerous/cold?” The other is: “How wonderful, lucky old you.” Needless to say, the people I like best are the second lot. And I like the look of the other women who swim there, too – free spirits, all of them – though I never talk to anybody. Swimming is a solitary activity; it’s where I slip into a dream state and think up my plots. After a couple of circuits something loosens in my brain and I start making unusual connections. Writing is all about relationships – between sentences, between people, between changes of tone – and being submerged in another element can shake these around in a new formation.
-Margaret Drabble
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