D is for DISCIPLINE

     I don't suppose there's anyone who seriously believes the romantic notion that an author is someone who only writes when he/she is 'inspired' to do so. Conversely, I hope no-one takes seriously the concept of 'writer's block'. I was once at a conference at which Bernard Cornwell was speaking. In the question time afterwards a young lady asked him, 'Do you ever get writer's block'? He countered with a question of his own. 'What do you do for a living?' he asked. 'I'm a nurse,' she replied. 'So, tell me,' he said, 'do you ever get nurse's block?' His point was that writing is a job and, like any job, it has its good days and bad days; days when the words flow and days when you write the same paragraph over and over again and still can't get it right.

     So, how do you cope with the bad days and how do you keep them to a minimum? The answer in a word is 'discipline'. If you were working for a boss you would, reasonably, be expected to devote a certain number of hours a week and diligently perform the tasks assigned to you. Well, you are working for a boss - your public. They have every right to expect your best efforts. The trouble is, there's no boss looking over your shoulder, or checking your research or timing your coffee breaks. It's all down to you. And it's not easy. When my mind is drifting away from the task in hand I can think of a dozen other things I ought to be doing. That creaking garden gate really must be fixed. This might be a good time to phone my agent for a chat. Then, of course, there's that time waster extraordinaire - the internet. Perhaps I ought to check for the tenth time this hour to see if anyone's tweeted me. All authors face their problems. Here are a few tips I've discovered myself or picked up from others:

Location, location, location: Roald Dahl used to work in a shed in the garden. Some writers actually hire an office and, literally, 'go to work'. In a specially arranged creative spare you can avoid most domestic distractions.

Time management: I hate routine (particularly when imposed by someone else) but I've had to evolve my fixed working hours. They have varied over the years but have currently settled to my present schedule. I'm at my desk, apart from meal breaks, 9.0 am to 5.0 pm. Of course, this can't be absolutely rigid; the phone must be answered and one can't do much gardening at night! But, as far as possible, I keep correspondence, exercise, reading for pleasure, socialising, etc out of 'office hours'.

Variety: It often helps to have a couple of projects on the go at the same time. Different tasks involve different kinds of brain activity. A detailed non-fiction book requiring lots of note-taking needs a different kind of concentration than the next chapter of the current novel or collecting the illustrations for a magazine article or roughing out a lecture. If I'm stuck on one project, it often helps to switch to another. 

Sleep: Time was, when the juices were flowing, I could work half way through the night. Now I'm lost without my eight hours. Getting the amount of sleep we need is simple common sense. I make sure that when the light is switched off, so is the brain. I don't take my creative problems into the world of dreams. BUT, of course, they are there in the unconscious mind, which often does its work independently of my own cerebral effort. Frequently I find that a problem that seemed intractable the night before has solved itself by the morning.

Holidays: Whatever jobs we do, a seven-day-week doesn't make any sense. Everyone needs a break, a change of scene, the stimulus of a different environment. Our sanity needs it. Our work needs it. But, then, does the writer ever stop working? All experience is grist to the mill, whether absorbed consciously or unconsciously. My pockets are stuffed with bits of paper on which I've jotted down observations, ideas, comments. I really ought to keep a notebook but I've never got around to being that organised.

Filing: Some authors are very methodical. They keep card indexes or whatever the internet equivalent is. I expect it's a good idea. Perhaps, one day, when I have time ... At the moment it's one area where my self-discipline breaks down.

Privilege: When I'm tempted to settle for second best; when my mind recoils from yet another rewrite of a difficult chapter; when I can't bring myself to cross out a particularly juicy bit of prose; I try to remind myself how privileged I am to spend my working hours doing something I enjoy - something thousands of other people make possible by buying my books. I owe it to them to carry on doing the best I possibly can. They have a right to expect me to be disciplined.

   That really leads on to being involved in other people's lives. E is for Empathy.

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C is for Celebrity

     If you saw J.K. Rowling pushing a trolly round Sainsburys would you recognise her? Neither would I. That's the difference between fame and celebrity. Famous people are known for what they do. Celebrities are known for who they are or for the image they project. They are public personalities. The cult of celebrity essentially began with the development of visual communications media. The movies made stars. But they could act. Television has created 'celebs', people of modest talents or none. It's not one of the more admirable characteristics of our society. It has certainly done authors no favours. It has flooded the bookstore shelves with books by, or ghosted for, celebs.

     If I were tempted to adumbrate a golden rule for aspiring authors (of course, I'm not because there's no such thing) I might suggest 'Get yourself on the telly'. It's a strange phenomenon that people will buy books if they recognise the author pic on the jacket. Publishers, of course, know this full well. That's why they hand out generous advances to writers who have no literary pretensions. It is part of an author's responsibility to maintain the quality of the written word. It should be part of a publisher's concern to foster those who are trying to do just that. Every penny they expend on paying and publicising the written ramblings of TV game show hosts or self-glorifying politicians is a penny not spent on maintaining standards in the book bizz.

     Is there anything we authors can do about this? Not really. We are, in effect, anti-celebs. We spent most of our time, not in the public forum, but in virtual purdah. Our interaction is with the page or the computer screen. Or, rather, it's internal as we struggle with words, metaphors, images and emotions in order to externalise them in ways that will inform, move, amuse, delight readers, most of whom we will never see. If we are successful it's not because people admire our looks, our quirky behaviour, our dress sense. Any success is down to the words which allow readers access to our imagination, our knowledge, our humanity. It is a privilege to be able to influence them and, in some measure, to enrich their lives. But it is also a frustration to know that we could contribute even more to the public weal if we were better known.

     This frustration tempts some aspiring authors to dissipate their time and efforts building up 'followings' via twitter, facebook and youtube. I'll have more to say about that under 'S is for Social Media'. For now I'll just comment that, in my view, this kind of self-promo is speculative and time-consuming. To end on a more up-beat note, there are other ways of getting better known, word-based ways (See J is for Journalism and N is for Niche Markets). So, my 'D' will be not for Despair but Discipline.

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B is for Bookshops

     One of my simple pleasures in earlier times was to spend an afternoon meandering along Charing Cross Road, browsing in the almost door-to-door bookshops. Some of them still remain, with their stuffed shelves spilling out onto the pavement but this street is no longer the bibliophiles' Mecca it once was. Times have changed and their impact on bookshops is a microcosm of the metamorphosis of our civilization. Am I embarking on a nostalgic rant about the book bizz going to the dogs? Absolutely not; but I do want to make a few observations, from a writer's perspective, about how things have changed for good or ill and what that means for us.

     Let's start with the good news: the book is not dead. Despite the appearance of the 'entableted' word, all surveys show that most readers still prefer to turn the pages of a real book. Not only is there a tactile pleasure to be derived from this but it is, actually, easier to 'move around' between the covers - back-checking previous passages, using the index, making individual marginalia. We can still build up relationships with our favourites and recognise them by their size, colour and dog-earedness.

     That said, we have to face the fact that the book has become a commodity, and this is something every writer and particularly every fiction writer needs to take on board. The main objective of the marketing departments of the major publishers (and it only applies to the big boys; others don't get a look-in) is to have a new novel taken up by one of the big supermarket chains. They are the retailers who place the big orders. One in every five books bought is taken off a supermarket shelf. What can the aspiring author learn from this? That it's worthwhile looking at the bookshelves in Tesco or Waitrose. Like it or not, the supermarket bosses know what sells. So, am I suggesting that you prostitute your art by churning out wordage aimed at the lowest common denominator of public taste? No, but it's certainly helpful to know what the current public taste is. If you can support your latest pitch to a publisher with evidence that Asda are currently selling Roman history novels or political thrillers or whatever 'just like mine' you stand a better chance of getting taken seriously.

     Savage commercialism has impacted on booksellers (and therefore, authors) in other ways. Shops used to be places where writers could meet their potential readers. Many of them hosted signings and talks. Few now do so. That is because hundreds have been forced out of business by the chainstores and their discount policies, and few of those who are left can afford to put on social events. Of course, there are brave exceptions. It is well worth authors establishing and sustaining relations with booksellers, particularly if they can make local-interest connections with their books. However, to all intents and purposes this marketing opportunity has been closed to us.

     Going back to where we came in, Foyles in Charing Cross Road, in its glitzey new store, puts on some excellent author events. So do some Waterstones branches. But don't imagine you'll get a look-in there. They are not interested in honest-to-goodness writers. They only want big name speakers who will put bums on seats.

     That brings me to my next topic. C is for Celebrity. Watch this space.