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Espresso with
“Confidence is figure.”
In occasions of inexperienced fatigue, a number of crises, German angst, and a typically gloomy temper, confidence appears extra essential than ever – and so uncommon. However the place can we discover it?
Barbara Beiertz
Why stand up within the morning?
Right now we’re launching a small collection of espresso talks looking for solutions to this query. The place do authors and artists discover their braveness, their perception within the success of their work? Why do individuals commit themselves daily to local weather safety, natural farming, a greater atmosphere – regardless of all of the adversity? Why does somebody resolve for a particular area of examine figuring out that they’ll’t earn some huge cash with it? The place does the assumption within the concept for a start-up come from? Why stand up within the morning?
And what does all this should do with Mount Hagen? We wish to make a distinction. We wish to encourage individuals past our natural Truthful commerce espresso cups. To new views, ideas, concepts, and the hope that every particular person could make a distinction in spite of everything. What if it really works?
Our first “Espresso with…” happened on the river Elbe – in step with Katharina Hagena’s new ebook “River Traces”. The wind and climate nearly crashed our plans, however we discovered shelter in a small, cozy workplace and due to to-go cups, we have been in a position to dive into the subject of confidence whereas having fun with a steaming espresso.
“I am one factor at a time.”
Barbara Beiertz: Katharina, I did a bit extra analysis on you shortly earlier than our interview and I’m actually impressed by every part you do and have achieved: You studied English and German in Marburg, London, and Freiburg. You probably did your doctorate on James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. You wrote probably the most profitable novel debuts, “The Style of Apple Seeds”, which was additionally made right into a film. A number of different books. Novels, essays, scientific texts.
You’re patron of the Clinic-Clowns Hamburg. You’re within the Pen Membership Berlin and Germany. And also you invented the “Ulysses” flipbooks with Stefanie Clemen. You could have two kids, do Pilates a number of occasions every week and it feels such as you run alongside the Elbe for 2 hours daily. This yr you printed a brand new, very profitable ebook: “River Traces”. And above that you simply’re additionally on ebook excursions on a regular basis. How do you handle all that?
Katharina Hagena: It appears like I’m doing it abruptly, however that’s not true. I’m not good at multitasking in any respect. I can actually solely do one factor at a time and should cease chewing gum earlier than I cross the street.
I additionally don’t really feel like I’m doing a lot. Others do far more. I reasonably suppose that I stay a privileged life, that I can go for a stroll alongside the Elbe daily each time I really feel prefer it. Different colleagues nonetheless have to put in writing newspaper articles in order that they’ll finance their work on the novels. That every one appears like quite a bit, however I’m additionally fairly previous. (Nice laughter. Katharina is simply 57 years previous. Editor’s observe)
B: What most individuals are desirous about after they have the prospect to talk with an creator: How do the concepts to your books come about? And the way have you learnt it’s going to be story?
Ok: The story at all times comes comparatively late. I consider sure matters that I’m at the moment coping with. Each ebook is a seek for fact, with out the hope of solutions. However perhaps that results in some higher questions after which I attempt to strategy the matters by way of these questions. And that’s how I begin gathering all the knowledge.
And the second factor is: I would like the setting. I can’t simply randomly say, oh sure, I’ll set it someplace on this city or that vacation resort. I at all times should know precisely what it seems to be like there, what it smells like, at what time of day and at what time of night time one thing or somebody is operating round, rising, singing, chirping. That is essential. And I can then place the characters in my setting and develop the plot from there.
B: Are you afraid of the clean web page?
Ok: After all. Worry of the clean web page is my center identify. However the good factor is: I write on the pc, so it’s not so white, however has a nice grey tint. It’s extra the start that I discover troublesome. Since you set the tone, the sound of the novel, within the first few pages. As soon as that’s in place, you’ll be able to’t change it. That’s one thing I’ve to be very cautious with.
However my analysis at all times takes an insanely very long time, so I find yourself stressed and impatient to lastly begin writing. The primary few pages typically go actually easily, as if I’ve already heard the sound.
It’s essential to me that I don’t begin too early, that I wait lengthy sufficient till I actually know that the stress is so excessive that I received’t cease after a short while. That could be a joyful expectation and restlessness. And when this will increase to such an extent that the individuals round me say “Sit down now and do it! You’re insufferable!”, then it’s the precise time.
B: What was causing researching “River Traces”? The gardener Else Hoffa?
Ok: Sure, particularly the gardener – and the Roman backyard, which I discovered lovely previous images of on the heritage workplace, the place you’ll be able to see what it used to appear like. I did loads of analysis on the gardener. I needed to go to the Warburg archive in London, rummage by way of letters and attempt to extract particular person sentences about Else Hoffa from the mini-Sütterlin script. Generally it took me hours to search out out that it mentioned: “Hoffi is okay.”
However typically there have been additionally nice finds that I used to be actually happy with and that I may then base the plot of the novel on. I used to be right here within the state archives and had the compensation information of Else Hoffa given to me. I’m certain nobody has ever checked out them. As a half-Jew, she filed a lawsuit towards town and the German Reich with a view to apply for a compensation pension. And I discovered quite a bit – additionally about her complete life. That was very thrilling. It was additionally time-consuming, however completely enriching.
B: The place did the thought come from?
Ok: I actually needed to set a ebook within the Roman Backyard in Hamburg, at the least partially. As a result of I typically go it on my each day walks alongside the Elbe. I discover the place nearly magical with its pure theater. You’ll be able to’t say for certain whether or not it’s not really an UFO touchdown website. And I feel the place is comparatively quiet, a bit too unspectacular to be an enormous vacationer magnet. And that’s why there are typically just some empty bottles up there from events the night time earlier than. However I feel that’s really fairly good. In any other case, it’s fairly quiet there. I then began researching the backyard and rapidly got here throughout Else Hoffa.
The complete sound.
B: Our theme is confidence. It arose from the notion of tiredness and exhaustion round me. From inexperienced fatigue, loads of frustration from so many crises – there’s at all times one thing occurring on the earth which you can not comprehend. Margrit, considered one of your foremost characters and a really likeable previous girl, is 102 years previous. Do you suppose it’s fascinating to stay to be that previous? Is that your imaginative and prescient?
Ok: I feel Margrit is an nearly utopian determine. As a result of at her superior age, together with her unbelievable life expertise, she nonetheless has a lot love and curiosity within the individuals round her. However she is conscious that her future is virtually exhausted and that she is wanting again on a really, very long gone. That she principally solely consists of tales and historical past and that she hardly has to look to the longer term.
Your theme – confidence – signifies that you look to the longer term, that you simply sit up for one thing. And though Margrit rarely seems to be forward, she remains to be probably the most assured characters on this novel, maybe for that very cause. Maybe being previous and assured is typically simpler than being younger and assured.
B: And the place do you get your confidence from?
Ok: Kant even spoke of an obligation to be assured. Confidence is one thing that’s already in us, however it’s one thing lively. For me, confidence is admittedly not the identical as optimism. Confidence is extra differentiated: That you simply actively attempt to come to phrases with the circumstances that exist ultimately – with out chucking up the sponge. However that has nothing to do with this childish “every part is okay” positivism, which will get on my nerves past perception.
B: Taking issues as they’re, working with them, making the perfect of them and creating them additional is essentially the most troublesome factor of all. How have you learnt that your textual content is “proper”, that it’s good? Intestine feeling?
Ok: It’s not only a intestine feeling. I imagine that there are very goal standards as as to whether a sentence is profitable or not. Whether or not a picture “sits” or whether or not there’s a punch line.
It’s a bit like a sound: Once you play tennis and also you hit the ball in precisely the precise spot on the racket, it makes such a satisfying, wealthy sound. Or whenever you sing and you’ve hit the notes in simply the precise means, your diaphragm is concerned, your voice is vibrating and nothing is caught, then that instantly. It’s greater than only a feeling. It’s a data of your physique. And data of the sound you’ll be able to produce with it and the sensation that it’s wholesome and proper.
It’s the identical with writing ultimately. It has one thing to do with sound. Additionally together with your physique, together with your breath. Sure, there may be undoubtedly one thing bodily about it, like in tennis or singing.
B: And when the “sound” feels proper: Do you then draw your motivation from it to proceed writing or to deal with the subsequent mission?
Ok: It’s not a lot the enjoyment of my very own capacity as a way of struggling whenever you begin a brand new ebook. As a result of there are matters that you simply attempt to discover out extra about. Or that you simply attempt to strategy by writing and feeling and pondering. Writing is a combination of every part, of feeling and pondering. All sensory organs are concerned if you wish to strategy matters or issues on this means.
In a means, a narrative is at all times a bit like a mirror with which you’ll attempt to look the reality within the eye. Like that Greek hero, I feel it was Perseus, who may solely defeat Medusa by wanting within the mirror whereas he was slaying her. If he had checked out her straight, he would have turned to stone.
That’s how writing works for me, that’s how the story works for me. Solely by way of the mirror of a story, solely by way of the mirror of a narrative, can I look the monstrosities of existence within the eye with out petrifying. However now and again I nonetheless should petrify. (She grins.)
Curiosity. Self-discipline. And writing towards dying.
B: And what do your kids say whenever you immerse your self in writing like this?
Ok: Oh, it’s not that unhealthy. It’s all not very romantic. After I disappear, I additionally reappear. When my kids have been nonetheless dwelling at dwelling, my time was decided by others: After they have been at college, I wrote. After they got here dwelling, I cooked, went to the sandbox or did what I needed to do.
Nonetheless, it’s at all times good to have time at a stretch after I begin writing. Previously, my husband needed to take the kids and disappear with them for every week or two in order that I may get rolling. And as soon as a textual content has acquired rolling, it may possibly proceed to roll alongside fairly properly – even when my time is structured by exterior circumstances. That works.
However you do want a little bit of self-discipline. You’ll be able to’t suppose, I’ll wait till the muse comes, however earlier than that I’ll buy groceries or one thing. The muse has to know the place to search out you. Which means it’s important to be sitting at your desk. It’s not such as you’re on the retailer and drop your baggage and say: “Ah, inspiration (ideally within the type of a white dove) has fluttered onto me! And now I’ll simply go dwelling and write web page after web page after web page.” You even have to take a seat there and activate the pc and simply get began. You’ll be able to nonetheless return afterwards and see if it’s any good.
B: So it’s simply work, self-discipline, and little bit of routine?
Ok: Sure, not glamorous in any respect. Sadly. And it additionally has one thing to do with stress.
B: Are you placing your self beneath stress or the place does it come from?
Ok: Nicely, I feel it comes naturally, like psychological stress, but in addition like a thirst for data. That’s additionally a type of stress. It’s a curiosity, a necessity. I don’t suppose I can write a ebook as a result of I feel: “Oh good, I’ve acquired time at present, I’ll write a ebook.” A minimum of that’s how it’s for me. I would like an internal necessity as to why I’m doing this. Sure, it’s work and it’s agonizing and painful. However I additionally don’t wish to learn books that aren’t obligatory. And I don’t wish to write something that isn’t obligatory. My time is simply too treasured for that – so is the readers’ time.
B: What “necessity” was that for “River Traces”?
Ok: A number of issues. Amongst different issues, I needed to put in writing one thing about age and one thing about love.
B: Is it a romance novel?
Ok: Maybe not, however it’s fueled by love. Love in many alternative sides. After all, it’s additionally a novel about reminiscence and dying. However I at all times have the sensation that we’re writing towards dying anyway and that that is additionally a motivator for all artists. Merely the attention of transience and that you simply then write one other ebook – sure, that’s confidence once more. Or plant one other apple tree. Or inform one other story. “Come on, another…”, like in “1001 Nights”: Come on, another story, another story. Tomorrow dying awaits. Come on, another. And another.
B: It’s a dream come true whenever you handle to inform books or tales in such a means that persons are captivated by them and wish to know the way it ends. Do you at all times know the ending whenever you begin writing your tales?
Ok: Sure, I understand how my tales finish. I’m by no means stunned by the top. I do know my ending, however I don’t know precisely how you can get there. It’s a bit like this: You see the Wittenbergen lighthouse again there, however it’s important to discover the best way. Nicely, okay, it’s simply straight forward from right here. So let’s say: The tv tower in Hamburg. After which it’s important to discover your means there by writing – and quite a bit nonetheless occurs whilst you’re writing. However other than the ending, I don’t actually have a very tough construction beforehand. Generally the construction is modified once more whereas I’m writing or flooded by the narrative move. I’m open to that. It’s not a metal body. However there’s a framework that I can use as a information and on which I can in the end grasp my footage.
In contrast to music or sculpture, language is extraordinarily linear. I can solely put one phrase after one other, one letter after one other. However our actuality is simultaneous and every part occurs directly. I can hear and odor and style and see – all on the identical time. I can’t do this with language. I say: “hear and see and style.” However I’ve already used up time. It’s not simultaneous.
For me, I add a 3rd dimension to this linearity by designing footage. And I’ve to hold them up someplace. It’s like an online of photographs that I attempt to create. For instance, if a personality in a novel finally ends up buried in a gravel pit, then I have already got sand on the primary web page. Then I can grasp up these photographs of sand and burial and recollections and every part that’s linked on this internet. That’s how I’m making an attempt to cheat the two-dimensionality of language.
B: Do your characters come to life whenever you write?
Ok: Some authors actually stay with their characters, who stay an nearly unbiased life. I reasonably have the sensation that I’m maybe working like an actress who places herself within the footwear of those characters in order that she begins to suppose like them. However then I don’t have the sensation of “Oops!”, however reasonably of “Yeah, proper!”.
“There may be another story…”
B: Now we have simply talked about confidence and motivation, which come up from curiosity and a thirst for data. And coping with issues as they’re with a view to make the perfect of them. Are you able to think about not having change into a author?
Ok: Sure, really I did. I used to be already on a special path: I had began my habilitation thesis and will have change into a literary scientist. Both means, I might have devoted my life to literature. Opening up literature can be a artistic course of, for instance, all of a sudden breaking open a brittle, closed poem and letting it shine. That’s exhilarating. I beloved being a literature lecturer.
However after I was little, I undoubtedly needed to be a author, I wrote poetry from a really early age. And at 18, I really had the sensation that I used to be already a author (she laughs). My luckily misplaced fantasy novel, which I wrote after I was 16, was additionally a transparent indication to me that I had really been a author for a very long time. Then I studied literature and was one way or the other shocked by the truth that every part already exists and that different individuals even have emotions too, not simply me. Stunning.
However later – in my actual life outdoors college – a number of issues got here collectively that all of a sudden made me say: There may be another story that I want to learn, however it isn’t on the market. So, I’ve to put in writing it myself. That turned the novel “The Style of Apple Seeds”.
However I typically take into consideration whether or not that wasn’t in the end a coincidence. There are the tales by J. Ok. Rowling about how she despatched her manuscript to – let’s say – 110 publishers and so they all mentioned no. And solely the 111th lastly printed it. I don’t know if I may have achieved that. If 5 good publishers had informed me, “Nope, you don’t have it in you”, I don’t know if I might have had the energy to say, “Sure, I do, I do know higher and I’ve acquired it.” So, what would have occurred if perhaps the sixth had mentioned sure, however I had given up after the fifth?
However these are issues of destiny that you simply don’t have a lot affect over. Maybe that additionally has one thing to do with confidence. Confidence is the understanding that one thing will occur. I additionally don’t imagine that you simply essentially should make the perfect of every part. It’s extra that you simply attempt to one way or the other handle or proceed to work with the issues you’ve. And maybe not simply to hope, but in addition to imagine that there’s a technique to get out of one thing in a single piece. I feel confidence can be work.
“I needed to strive it as soon as. As soon as.”
B: The story you might be telling is encouraging in itself, offers you confidence…
Ok: I can solely encourage individuals to essentially do issues. Goals are essential and you need to at all times have them. However it’s also possible to dare to ask your self: “What would occur if I attempted to make this dream a actuality? Do I really feel snug dreaming or am I lacking one thing? Would I maybe wish to have extra than simply this dream?”
B: What if it really works in spite of everything…?
Ok: Precisely. I didn’t inform anybody about it again then after I was writing the primary ebook. When you’ve got young children in Germany, no one asks you what you’re doing anyway. So, I didn’t should preserve it a secret. However I assumed, if it doesn’t work out, then I’ll do one thing else. That’s not such a foul factor. However I needed to strive it as soon as. As soon as.
B: My final query, which I ask all my espresso drinkers right here: What’s the perfect mistake you’ve ever made?
Ok: I actually have to consider that now. I feel the perfect mistake – or the perfect defeat I ever had – was that I didn’t go the doorway check for the Henri Nannen College.
B: In any other case you’ll have change into a journalist.
Ok: Sure, and I might have been such a foul journalist as a result of I don’t like calling strangers in any respect. However 90 % of being a journalist consists of calling strangers. I may by no means have achieved it. It’s a lot simpler to make one thing up.
B: How good – for all of us.
