Talking to the New York Times in 1936, Cole Porter took an unsentimental view of his work when it was completed. ‘The moment the curtain rises on the opening night, I say to myself: “There she goes” and I’ve bid good-bye to my baby,’ he said. ‘ The minute that it is exposed to its… Continue reading The spark of an idea… the rewrite… publication day. When is the best moment in a writer’s life?
Read moreIt will catch any serious writer in the end: that familiar dread of the blank or page or screen as it stares back at you, daring you to give it some words which, the blank page just knows, will be disappointing, or surprisingly weak, or in some way inferior to everything you have written before.… Continue reading Top Nine Writer’s Rules #7: Fear
Read moreDo you know the feeling when you are so absorbed in what you are writing that you lose all sense of time? Food, sex, sleep cease to be anything more than irritants which briefly divert you from the onward rush of your prose… [In my latest ‘Endpaper’ column for The Author, I provide some useful… Continue reading The art of creative non-writing
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