A Writer's Diary Podcast

When you're working on a story, it's likely you'll begin with an instinctive go at POV. You'll feel you need to be close to the action, say, and will default to the first person. Later on in the writing, though, you may realise that you've been inconsistent. Sometimes you're writing as if your narrator can moralise about the action, and sometimes they're still having their head spun. These three s...

It's very easy, when you're starting to write, or starting on a new project, to get hung up on tone, style and voice. Are they different? Should you concentrate on one rather than the other? How do they fit with Point of View? Here are some simple distinctions between tone, style and voice, and some advice about how to sidestep confusion. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substa...

When I started out teaching Creative Writing, I had a few things I promised myself I'd never say to students. For example, Show, Don't Tell. The main one was likening writing to painting, and telling my students that they needed to do the equivalent of learning to draw. I've turned round completely on that. You need to learn to draw, and for writers that means learning to understand and do differe...

Point of View is deeply linked to Time - not just blank time passing, but time that's full of events in a character's life. Today's podcast demonstrates that with a memory exercise concerting dialogue. We're all happy to read long scenes recalled years later by First Person Narrators, but how good would you be at remembering all those he said, she saids? Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awri...

Why should you be bothered thinking about Point of View in writing? Why not just launch into breathless your close First Person Present Tense narrative? Well, in my experience because Point of View's going to become a major issue, and anxiety, and blockage in about two week's time - if it isn't already. A Complete Guide to Point of View will help you map out the territory ahead, and make some choi...

Today's podcast is a pitch for On Drafting. I've been working at how to get the idea across to editors. This is my first go, and I'm looking for feedback. Maybe the tone's completely wrong, or maybe there's something can be rescued. It's better than asking ChatGPT, though. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Are you lucky enough to have somewhere in your flat or house that's dedicated to writing? Even if there's an ironing board or an exercise bike in there, too? What's necessary for you - or any writer - about having this privileged space? Well, a writer can't live with thieves or spies... Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Do you like to write in cafes? Is that because you want people to see you, hard at it, or because you need people around you who might just be working on their novels or memoirs? Here are a few thoughts about street photography, addicted note-taking and what to say if someone catches you taking down their juicy dialogue. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

There are writers who famously preferred to be horizontal, sheet-surrounded and cosied up with cats, in order to write. They weren't necessarily bed-bound, but they found this truancy from desks, day clothes, and anything clerk-like to suit them best. Proust, Colette, Mark Twain. And, going out to ask about my reader's writing habits, I've discovered that they are comfortable between covers of bot...

Wordprocessing can be great, useful and liberating. But it has many pitfalls. Not least of these is watching that wordcount slowly rise, and thinking you're a bad person if it doesn't get to a round number. Some advice on right attitude to working on the screen, in the world of pain that is or isn't MS Word. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Have you ever lost work to accidental document deletion as you sneezed? Or a coffee tsunami across the keyboard? Or because someone ran off with your laptop? Here's my advice - from my own bad experience. Obvious, maybe. But you'll thank me if this serves as a reminder to back your work up multiple times. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Here's an exercise to get you started on taking notes in a notebook. It might seem the most minimal thing - observing what's right in front of you. But I think it's fascinating how few writers seem to have done this. Two exceptions are the poets RF Langley and Arun Kolatkar. Both of whom knew how to sit and stare. And take notes. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/su...

Don’t let your selfishness get in the way of your creativity. You may not be equally capable of the whole job. Perhaps you’ll be more completely fulfilled by only doing half the work or a quarter or the tenth. Why not go out and find a collaborator, rather than feeling you have to do every single thing yourself? Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Do you find the physical bit of writing - scribbling or typing - an obstruction to your flow? Maybe you're thinking of using dictation software - of letting the dragon into your workspace? Here's some thoughts I've put together for my writing manual, On Drafting, about the history (Henry James) and future (AI) of speak-writing prose. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.co...

Good old 'desktop computers' - like 'wordprocessing software' they sound completely out of date. But they're having a resurgence, and there are some very good reason for using something big, formal, and at eye level, rather than something warm in your lap that makes you curl over like Nosferatu looking at a newborn baby. Desktop vs laptop, where do you sit? Get full access to A Writer's Diary at a...

Laptops - you hardly even notice them any more. Not unless your coffee's just dripped through the keyboard, narrowly missing your hard drive. They're just where you are, when you write. Today's entry takes a closer look at these means of production, and at the wordprocessing software (yes, I know that sounds old-fashioned) that limits us without us noticing. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at...

Do you have a desk? Does some cruel employer (yourself?) force you to hotdesk? Or is all you need a laptop on your lap? Today's podcast is about that most taken for granted piece of a writer's kit - the surface beneath the writing surface. Welcome to the desktop world. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm talking about typewriters - not my current means of production, but definitely where I first began. What are the virtues of bashing out a sentence on a mechanical typewriter of the sort Tom Hanks would lust after? And what are the downsides of fitting yourself in to a stereotypical image of The Writer? Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm trying to figure out - with your help - what to say in the writing manual I'm putting together about Notebooks. Fittingly, what I have so far are just some notes. I'm looking to get them into better shape, but perhaps that would be perverse. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today, I'm on paper. This is a writer's workplace, if they're not using a screen, and so it's important to get your right. You probably have a favourite paper already. If not, here's some advice. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Smart pens are today's subject I'm tackling for On Drafting, the writing manual my readers and listeners are helping me write. What are the advantages of a digital notepad, and how resilient are they in the long run? Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today's entry in the Writer's Diary has a go at gel, fibretip, rollerball, and fineliners. I love them, but god they're environmentally disastrous. (See fountain pens for an alternative.) How far do each of them write? I found some stats. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today's entry is firstly a response to the suggestion I should just get on with it. You're doing a book about drafting, help me get on with my drafting. I have a few words, not so stern, about impatience. Then I move on to those impatient means of writing - ballpoint pens. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Today's entry is on erasers and erasing, rubbers and rubbing out - if your writing is done in pencil. I'm not giving advice on good or bad brands. Instead, like a maths teacher, I am going to advise, 'Show your workings out.' Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe

Attempting to go even further into the minutiae of writing, today's entry is about pencil extenders. If you have a beloved pencil, now too short to hold, this may be the solution. But extenders really represent an attitude to writing. Do anything you need to keep going with what works. Get full access to A Writer's Diary at awritersdiary.substack.com/subscribe