Writers

Three Books That Have Inspired Me:

1. Although I go on about it, ‘Tristram Shandy’ continues to inspire me in the most practical ways. Recently I have finished a long re-imagining of ‘Don Juan’, which Byron called “a poetical Tristram Shandy” and am about to start work on a project with the artist Philippa Troutman involving physical digressions from Shandy Hall, where the brilliant curator Patrick Wildgust (Stephen Fry played him in the film ‘A Cock and Bull Story’) continues to extend Sterne’s heritage. So many things make it contemporary, but in the context of all the recent controversies in poetry about plagiarism, I love the fact that the denunciation of it in ‘Tristram Shandy’ was lifted verbatim and unacknowledged from Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’…

Top Five Tips:

1. There is no one way to write, there are no rules, everyone does it differently. Pick and choose from other people’s writing tips or make up your own, and find the way that works best for you.
2. When you write, don’t forget that everything is up for grabs: characters, setting, plot, structure, voice, style, beginning, middle, end. Nothing is sacred, it’s all in the service of the story.

What’s on my pile…

• Poems 1962-2012 Louise Glück.
• Short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Five writing tips:

1. Better to read books prompting the thought ‘what makes them so good?’ rather than books that make you think ‘I can do better than this’.
2. Readers are artists, too, and the writer depends on a good reader completing the world the writer began. It is a more honourable thing to be a good reader than a bad writer.

Alison’s Top Five Tips:

1. Stay alert to the world. Carry a pen and notebook, and keep one by your bed. Develop the habit of looking and ‘gathering’.

Stella’s five top tips:

1. Keep going, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
2. Write every day if at all possible.

Six top tips for writers:

1. Write every day. Set a time that’s yours for writing every day, including weekends. If you write at the same time every day, it’ll become habit after a month or two and your creative brain will be ready to go when you sit down. It also means you won’t have to have the argument with yourself about whether you’re too tired to do it or if you should eat/watch TV/exercise/snooze/feed the children before you write.

Published in 20 languages, David Vann’s internationally-bestselling books have won 15 prizes, including best foreign novel in France and Spain, and appeared on 75 Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, Elle UK, Esquire UK, Esquire Russia, National Geographic Adventure, Writer’s Digest, McSweeney’s, and other magazines and newspapers. A former Guggenheim fellow, National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Wallace Stegner fellow, and John L’Heureux fellow, he is currently a Professor at the University of Warwick in England and is working on a translation of Beowulf.