People sometimes ask me questions about writing, so here are a few things that occasionally come up in conversation.
How do you write?
I don’t write for much of the time. Maybe two or three hours a day, though it does vary between nothing at all and all day or all night.
If one was to include thinking, dreaming about it, imagining it, talking to myself or to my characters, waking up at 07:00 thinking about a specific issue that’s bothering me subconsciously, or scribbling illegible notes to myself on scraps of paper as part of the process (especially when I can’t remember where I’ve put my glasses), then a much larger proportion of my waking hours is devoted to it.
I’m reminded of a Thurber cartoon. A man at a cocktail party, glass in hand, stands alone and silent, back to the wall, facing a crowd of chattering guests. His partner comes up to him, clearly annoyed, and says, ‘Will you stop working?’
What do you feel when you finish a novel?
Revulsion. Disgust. Dismay. I see all too clearly its shortcomings, where I’ve failed, and why. I derive no pleasure at all from finishing a hundred thousand words or whatever it is. There’s no sense of relief or achievement.
What do you feel when you begin?
Elated. This next one is going to break the sound barrier, or at least it will be better, my best in fact. Of course it will. The idea is clear. I can picture the early scenes as if they’re already on paper. I know the characters. I can sense the ways in which the plot might develop. So I begin with renewed hope. This is going to sell! This is going to be original, clever, funny, entertaining, beautifully written! It might even win the (fill in name of prize here).
It ends up falling rather short of all those ambitions. Far too fucking short, if you must know.
Why do you write?
I’m not sure. Because the next one is going to be different. I’m going to experiment with tenses, the narrator’s voice, visible or otherwise, the point of view character or characters. Because I really need to get better at this. Thirteen novels and I’m just starting out. Because I have so much to learn still. Christ, I’m only 75! And in any case, what else am I going to do? Because I dislike gardening. I don’t fish nor do I any longer kill for pleasure creatures that run, crawl or fly. I don’t like holidays because I don’t care for crowds of tourists. Block the M25 for Stop Oil? Go to yet another Palestine Solidarity Campaign March? I’ve been on dozens of the latter since the early 90s, and much good it has done. Maybe direct action would be fun and more effective, though I’d probably be jailed and I don’t know how I’d manage without books. I’ll give that some thought, though.
How do you plan?
I don’t. I won’t because I reckon it’s the death of the creative drive, such as it is, whether it be as a writer or visual artist. Plan, and write according to that plan, and all I’ll have done is tossed exposition at the long-suffering reader. I’ll have provided a treatise, a documentary, a lecture, an essay, a crude data dump.
A big turn-off. It wouldn’t be a novel at all.
However, I do sometimes write down a list of possible scenes at the start of a new book, sometimes dozens of scenes, and I do so quickly to kick-start my brain. I read through what I’ve written, then delete the lot. I never refer back to any of it.
Do you have unpublished novels stashed somewhere?
Sure I do. I try a lot of things out and if they don’t work, or I get tired of whatever it is I’m trying to do, I ditch them, but sometimes reuse bits and pieces, cannibalising them like spare parts for other typescripts.
Where do you write?
Anywhere, any time. At home, on a train. I do have a favourite coffee shop at the moment where I do a lot of work in the mornings. It’s very quiet, the coffee is good and hot, and the young staff are friendly and efficient, and I enjoy hearing about their lives. It takes 40 minutes to walk there and another 40 back. This morning it was -3 Celsius and my eyes and nose ran both ways.
Why do you write thrillers?
At prep school I read G.A. Henty, John Buchan and especially C.S. Forester. At my high school, I turned to Hemingway, Geoffrey Household, Brian Moore, Eric Ambler, Len Deighton and Neville Shute. I think that answers the question. I’ve always liked adventure fiction. There are some wonderful adventure novels that have long been out of print and deserve better.
While I’m not keen on World War Two books (too much like polishing the family silver for my taste), Geoffrey Wagner’s superb The Sands of Valour is unmatched as a portrait of men caught up in tank battles in the Western Desert. Both vivid and moving, it really does deserve to be republished.
John Fullerton
Glasgow
December 2024
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