It should help

  Writing is lonely work. It’s just you and a laptop, or pen and paper, or shiny new i pad. So unless you are like two friends of mine who have decided to write a book together, you’re on your own. It’s you trying to carefully pry words from your unforgiving brain with a metaphorical fork and then you’ve got to type the words down and hope that your word processor doesn’t complain at you with that judgemental red line. Wait a minute, don’t panic, it’s set to the American dictionary, one quick change and you’re free to write the word “colour” as often as you like.

  At the end of the day (as my mother always says) writing is a very private thing. In fact even my two friends go their separate ways to write their respective chapters. And that’s fine. Except for one thing. It’s very unusual to hear anyone actually discuss the process of writing. For such a long time it was a mystery to me. I thought my favourite writers disappeared behind closed doors, sat down, wrote out a full book with a perfect structure, characterisation and no spelling mistakes. Surely a good writer doesn’t do what I do? Surely they can sit down and write perfection every time? But that’s not true.

  There have been a couple of times when I’ve managed to discover writers talking about writing. Which brings me to my first recommendation, “Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale” I urge you to get hold of a copy. And don’t worry, it’s not essential to be a fan of the show although a vague knowledge of the episodes discussed does make it more interesting. The book consists almost entirely of an e mail correspondence between Russell T Davies and the journalist Benjamin Cook. It really is an incredible insight in to the making of the show. Through these e mails we see ideas in their infancy, ideas that are grown in to something incredible or are even scrapped as actors come and go.

  The book doesn’t necessarily show the writing process but his writing process. And this distinction is important. It’s great to have those “oh my god I do that too!” moments, they help confirm that that strange thing you do as you type dialogue isn’t so strange and mental. But the greatest lesson this book can teach you is that everyone is different and everyone has their own way of doing things.

  I think as people start out with anything, be it writing, painting or whatever, they can get hung up on how their heroes do it. You have to teach yourself to not push away from what is best for you because “that’s not what J K Rowling does”. She might have been happy writing in a notebook in a cafe but don’t think that’s how you should be doing it.

  So I urge you once again, find this book, buy it from amazon, steal it from the library, anything to read a few of those insightful e mails from Russell T Davies. (Warning I do not condone theft). And I leave you with a few of his wise words, “The hardest part of writing is the writing.”