What do you do that helps you come up with ideas?  For me, one of the most important parts of my creative process is swimming.  Oh, I can come up with concepts fine without, but when it comes to allowing fresh ideas to bubble up, and giving problems a chance to solve themselves, nothing beats an hour in the local swimming pool.

Noel Street Leisure Centre is a Victorian construct, with a pool longer than many modern facilities typically have, and changing rooms around it.  I love the place, as spare and archaic as it is, and have spent many a happy afternoon there that’s led to productive writing concepts emerging.

Just the other week I was there when there was a thunderstorm overhead, and that seems to sum the place up for me: a shelter from whatever’s happening in the outside world, or indeed the inner one.  Swimming for me doesn’t allow any opportunity for thought, since I’m involved in the whole body experience of being immersed in water and keeping myself afloat.  No room in my head then for dwelling on unexpectedly large utility bills or wondering why I haven’t been snapped up by Channel 4 to write a dream project.

Swimming is a way of connecting with the animal in me, that keeps me alive and sane and deserves to be rewarded for doing a good job on both fronts.  It’s good for keeping me balanced and energised, as is acupuncture.  I’ve done both in the last couple of days, and feel better than I have done for weeks.

A rationalist friend of mine likes to taunt me with articles proving the inefficacy of acupuncture, and that leads to a merry debate when I can be bothered, but bottom line is I value my experience over someone else’s chi-squared analysis.  Having needles inserted in strategic points, and incense lit on some of them, makes me feel amazing within minutes.

Besides, I can talk films and books with my acupuncturist: she’s a perceptive consumer of stories, and well worth listening to.  Not an experience I’d be likely to get in the ten minutes or so allocated to GP appointments, but the difference is more than that.  Healthcare in general is thought of as to do with maintaining a certain level of wellbeing.  I’m interested in optimising that state, which is a different thing: yes, I sometimes go for acupunture because of ailments — but also to make myself feel better than I already did.

That distinction applies to swimming too, and it’s a philosophy that feeds into the way I approach writing: I want to be in good mental and emotional shape to write whatever comes up, some of which is pretty dark.  I’ d rather not have to think myself into a grim place to write scripts that are concerned, as some of my work is, with dark subject matter.  That’s the goth fallacy, and I don’t buy it.

Another part of this story is my alleged bipolarity, a condition I’m labelled as having even if I refuse to acknowledge the accuracy of the taxonomy.  Having known what a scary place your own head can be, I’m keen to keep mine in good shape, and good mental hygiene is important to me.  At the moment the picture involves medication that’s evidently doing a fine job at keeping me stable without side effects other than weight gain, and in time I plan to come off that medication — but not in the next couple of years, when I have far too many plans to realise to potentially jeapordise things by rearranging my mental furniture.

In an ideal world, I’d be swimming more than I do.  And that’s an ideal world I’m working my way towards, with every phone call, email, meeting, and story idea.  This is the longest of long games, a marathon of uncertain duration, and I want to stay in good shape for it.

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