What’s a piece of writing advice that’s held true for you?
“Don’t get it right, get it written” becomes ever truer as I become ever fussier with my output. Although I’m also increasingly drawn to the wisdom of football managers, including “trust the process,” “it’s a results business,” and “don’t let the highs get too high, or the lows too low.”
What’s the thing you read when you want to remember how to write?
Pretty much anything. All writers are thieves (sorry, “magpies”), so I’m generally just looking for something to nick. My chief mark is probably Raymond Chandler, but I’m Catholic so my tastes are catholic too. On second thoughts, perhaps the very best writers aren’t thieves. Perhaps I wouldn’t know.
As a writer, how do you stay curious or keep yourself curious?
People are endlessly fascinating. The fact that people are capable of, can justify and rationalise, just about any behaviour? It’s amazing. I can’t stop thinking about that. I can hardly think about anything else.
Who do you think really knows how to do an email newsletter?
There’s some guy called Nick Ortner who runs ‘The Tapping Solution’ app. You tap various parts of your face and body to relieve stress. It was a typical lockdown purchase, but every time I plan to unsubscribe I seem to get a newsletter and, within 10 minutes, find myself hopefully tapping my temple. The man knows his way around an aphorism.
How would you describe your relationship with your readers? (especially if it’s evolved)
You do know whom you’re talking to, right? I don’t think I’m successful enough to have much of a relationship with my readers — we’re more like parents nodding at each other at the primary school gates. Occasionally, I’ve seen people reading my books on public transport but always assume they must be in some way connected to my mum. I do sometimes get praise and sometimes grief, but I try not to take it to heart — don’t let the highs get too high, or the lows too low.
Once, at a book festival, I was buttonholed by someone who gushed at me, but it turned out they thought I was the poet, Don Paterson. Fortunately, I love Don Paterson, so answered in some detail about his collection Rain. I hope I did it justice.
What’s your one tip (that doesn’t get discussed enough) for a writer trying to improve in 2022?
Just one? Specifically in 2022? I have hundreds (read more poetry, cheese is not your friend, your writing doesn’t matter, nothing matters more, scream into a pillow…), but if I have to choose just one it’s this: get into Wordle by all means — it takes two minutes — but avoid the offshoots like the plague (Quordle, Sedecordle etc). They prove nothing but your procrastination; basically drugs without the high.
