How to Be a Writer

I plan my day so that there is time in it for writing a poem, or a paragraph, or an essay, or part of a story or longer work; not just because writing is my profession, but from a feeling of delight.

Life would be intolerable if I did not have this freedom to write every day.

My theory of writing is that the conception should be as clear as possible, and that words should flow like a stream of clear water – preferably a mountain stream! You will, of course, encounter boulders, but you will learn to go over them or around them, so that your flow is unimpeded. If your stream gets too sluggish or muddy, it is better to put aside that particular piece of writing. Go to the source, go to the spring, where the water is purest, your thoughts as clear as the mountain air. I do not write for more than an hour or two in the course of the day. Too long at the desk, and words lose their freshness.

meditate: to plan mentally, to exercise the mind in contemplation.

There are so many lovely things to see, there is so much to do, so much fun to be had, and so many charming and interesting people to meet … how can my pen ever run dry?

if I wasn’t being paid I would still be writing, because I like expressing myself in good words and sentences. It’s all about self-expression.

There’s the subjective writer, who writes out of his or her own life. And there’s the objective writer, who writes about others as he sees them. You can be subjective and passionate, like Emily Brontë. Or coldly objective, like Saki or Maugham, or a purveyor of violent crime fiction. Or you can write for children and put some of them on the road to literature.

Ambition is the spur to our endeavour. Aim high. And even if you don’t get to the top, you will be far above the bottom!

“Always use the exact word, Bond,” my English teacher, Mr. Knight, used to tell me when I was at school. “Don’t bother with difficult, complicated words. Keep it simple. Be exact. Don’t try and mystify your reader.”

Be different. There was only one Dickens, one Emily Brontë, one Maupassant, one Premchand, one Tagore, one P.G. Wodehouse. They were great because they were different. They had their own unique voices. You can almost hear them when you read their work. They have their own way of writing, their own style.

That initial enthusiasm that has put you on the road to becoming a writer is something that will have to sustain you throughout your writing life. The successful ones—those who go on producing book after book, story after story—from youth into old age, never flagging, never losing their enthusiasm—they are never bored and they will never bore their readers.

So there you have the secret—see your story, dream-like but real—then put it down.

There is something about having one’s name on the cover and title page of a published book that appeals to the ‘ego’ that exists in all of us who can write a little.

To read, to write, to be read; the perfect combination.