The Secret of Writing

“You want to write? Well f*** off home and write”.

The above is the full text of a talk on "The Secret of Writing" given by a famous American author to a group of hopefuls at a hotel in London after he had looked down at his audience with some distaste. There's more to it than that, though. In my own case the additional secret is always to carry a small notebook in which to note down ideas and quotes before the memory of them disappears, which these days happens over a fairly short timescale.

I have been sorting out my notes from the last couple of years during the past month, while waiting for my agent to sort out a contract for my latest book. These notes include over a hundred book titles that seemed brilliant at the time, and a mass of ideas for articles on things that have grabbed my attention. Often they concern the way in which science is sadly misunderstood by many people, including a classic gaffe from a BBC News commentator: “The temperature was minus sixty Centigrade, which means it was three times as cold as a domestic refrigerator.” If you can’t see why this is funny, you are not alone. When all reasonably educated people can see why it is funny, I will have done my job.

This fallow few weeks has borne fruit in the form of better lighting in my study, and a set of shelves where my writing notes are now properly organized under the titles of books that I am realistically aiming to write over the next few years. I wish that I could share the titles now, but writing is a cut-throat business. For the moment, all I can share is how I go about it.

The notebooks are one way, with tear-out pages (which I always date) to go in files. These notebooks have become an essential part of my life, because I never know when an idea is going to come. The latest one came when I was idly listening to a repeat edition of the endlessly funny BBC radio programme “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue”. Others have come while I am in the bath (resulting in a pattern of wet footprints across the carpet as I rushed for my notebook and pen), watching TV, or on one frustrating occasion out in the middle of Narrabeen Lake on my windsurfer. I kept repeating the idea out loud as I sailed to shore, only to be distracted and lose it. I’ll never know what it was now, and it might have made my fortune.

In the meantime it is time for me to f*** off and write another synopsis and sample chapter for my agent to try to sell. I will also try to write this blog more regularly, and I look forward to comments as to whether it is a help to potential writers. Who knows - the comments might even help me.