Last week, I started looking at secondary schools for my nine-year-old daughter. This seems a strange way to start a newsletter about writing, but here goes. As I was leaving one school, I was chatting to the headteacher about this and that, and when I mentioned I was a writer he told me about his son who is at university and has written two novels. He asked me if I had any advice for him. My answer? He must absorb himself in a community of writers.
You see, writing is a very solitary trade, it is mostly just sitting at your kitchen table in your pyjamas. It involves 50 per cent scratching your head and staring out the window, and 50 per cent fingertips to keyboard. But what you need more than anything is a crew.
Let me tell you why these people are so vital, and a little about how I have found mine over the years.
Firstly, it’s because times are sometimes tough. In those moments, when the writing isn’t flowing easily, or you find yourself all tangled up in plot, there is nothing more…