1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.
2. If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail
file of the metal or glass type.
3. Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood
or your arm will do.
4. If you’re using a computer, always safeguard new text with a memory
stick.
5. Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.
6. Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can
hold your own.) But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting
fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off
B.
7. You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
8. You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that
comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the
thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into
the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it
to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with
whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.
9. Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.
10. Prayer might work. Or reading something else. Or a constant visualisation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.
.jpg)