Just keep writing

A week at the Hay Festival

Back to Hay, a year on - and a reminder of my all-too-brief tryst with the literary world. I was over the moon to find the festival programmer had stocked my book, which I duly signed and watched as they were swept up from the front table. One lady had been to the talk I gave last year on the Discovery stage and asked what my next book would be about. I remembered what one literary festival grandee told me. Just keep writing. I immediately started hatching a plan.

Some of the best events were the unexpected ones, not the A-list names. James Marriott was brilliant on the post-literate world, the demise of reading and the cultural inflexion point we find ourselves in. I have a love-hate relationship with social media so it was refreshing to hear James’s clarion call to pick up a book.

He'd spoken to neuroscientists about the way the brain absorbs and retains information: it scans the page for information and refers back to earlier passages. Despite what content creators might say, vertical video does not feed your brain in the same way. Neither does scrolling articles online, reading hot takes or even audiobooks. He has got rid of his smartphone and with it has come the return of reasoned argument, engagement in public discourse, a more rounded ability to analyse and adapt. Sounds appealing, doesn't it? He was speaking to a bookish crowd who were very much on-side, but still, I'm really looking forward to his book, which is due out in September.

I got a last-minute ticket to hear Dr Saira Hameed an eminent endocrinologist, talk about hormones. It was an absolutely fascinating hour chaired by stand-up comic Sara Pascoe; the perfect pairing. Dr Hameed described the ways in which hormones govern every aspect of our lives: our mood, energy levels, appetite, libido, general health. Cortisol, the new social media star, is having a moment in the spotlight, with cortisol cocktails and mass produced quick-fixes doing the rounds when really, it's a lot more basic than that. We need it to wake up, to go about our days, to perform under pressure. As much as we like to think we can control hormones, we can't; they control us. I immediately bought her book Signals and am ripping through it.

Big hitters Irvine Welsh (late, befuddled), Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (talking about sewing and her new line of Liberty neckscarfs rather than the Iran war, politics or prison) and Emma Thompson (polished, charismatic, as you'd expect) were insightful and entertaining but I learned less. Always go with the underdog. Always go to the Discovery Stage.

More than any of that, the highlight was being back in that space, surrounded by thinkers, writers, creative minds. There is something special about Hay, more so than any other festival. Unlike Edinburgh or Cheltenham, Stratford or Stroud, it's a world in and of itself. For two weeks, a village for readers is set up, attracting some of the most exciting voices, old and new. Being there again has stirred something in me. Back to my writing desk now with renewed energy and ideas. Just keep writing.