On Not Writing in Italy

I’m living in one of the most beautiful places on earth, steeped in history and artistic tradition, so why can’t I write here?
The idea this winter was that while Neil was chipping away at his marble block, I would be tucked up cosily in our borrowed house, free from all the domestic trivia of ‘home’, gazing out of the window at the olive groves and writing like a train. I’ve got several projects in various stages of development and a big story that I’m trying to piece together. Uninterrupted time was, I thought, going to give me a fruitful couple of months or three to work on them.
But it hasn’t happened, and I don’t know why. One of the reasons is space - the only warm room in the house is the kitchen/diner, which has a small stove, but for some reason, although I use the computer there, I can’t write in this room. I seem to need a comfortable, cosy corner to curl up in. I also need privacy - a space where I can shut myself away without fear of interruption.
There’s also the exhaustion factor - I think I’m utterly worn out after the editing of the Mansfield book. But whatever it is, it bothers me, as I see the weeks slipping away and I’ve got nothing to show for the time spent here.
Maybe I’ve simply got to face the fact that I’m the kind of writer who needs her own quiet den to work in, surrounded by her own books and familiar things, without the disruption of travel and new places and faces. It’s stimulating, but not conducive to that quiet, dreamlike state where creative work is incubated and eventually hatched. It’s all input and no output at the moment.
There’s no end in sight yet. I’m off to London tomorrow for a couple of weeks of frenzy. Meetings with agents, and a trawl through the British Library and National Portrait Gallery for illustrations for the biography. Meanwhile, Neil’s sculpture now looks like this.