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?
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Beyond the daily grind of the thousand words, there is a rhythm to life as a writer. The commission of the moment (if there is one), the pressure of the work in progress, the seductive possibilities of those what-if, why-not?, would-be projects that you always mean to get around to writing: these tasks impose a… Continue reading Why do it? Notes from a writer’s shed
Read moreWriting, like life, has a nasty habit of turning around to bite you in the bum when you least expect it. So it has been while I was gently pondering what to write in this column. Rather to my surprise, I found that I had never written about that constant companion of a writer’s life,… Continue reading The Seven Rules of Rejection
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 moreHere is my ‘Endpaper’ piece for the summer edition of The Author, the magazine published for professional writers by the Society of Authors. Is it just me, or has everything suddenly gone rather quiet? Authors are used to hearing that the trade is dead, that bookshops are spookily deserted (it usually happens the week one… Continue reading It’s time for an authors’ revolution
Read moreIn the winter issue of The Author, the house magazine of the Society of Authors, I contributed to the gaiety of the season by considering some of the things which can go wrong for an author trying to get a book published…. There are now two types of writing life. In one, authors write, get… Continue reading Seven Things That Can Go Wrong For a Writer
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