{"id":253,"date":"2010-03-09T19:50:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T19:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/?p=253"},"modified":"2022-10-09T21:52:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T20:52:07","slug":"by-the-way-your-laptop-is-your-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/03\/09\/by-the-way-your-laptop-is-your-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"By the way…your laptop is your wife"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Angela Roma at Pexels<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Saturday\u2019s Guardian Review they published the ten rules of writing <\/a>of which my favourite came courtesy of Phillip Pullman<\/a>: \u2018My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work\u2019. As is often the case with good advice, I\u2019ve decided to completely ignore it and compile my own list.<\/p>\n

1. Read your work out in public. You\u2019ll develop a new found appreciation of tone, rhythm and punctuation. See the reaction of the audience as a kind of verbal editing. When they don\u2019t laugh at your funny character, it\u2019s because he isn\u2019t funny.
\n2. Join a writing group and open the windows when you leave the flat. It will smell lovely and fresh when you come home and your girlfriend might finally agree to come over.<\/p>\n

3. By the way\u2026your laptop is your wife. That cute one that comes over when the flat smells nice is just your bit on the side. Treat her as such. Your loyalty is with your wife and a wife is for life.<\/p>\n

4. Walk to work. This way you don\u2019t have to waste valuable writing time joining a gym. There is no greater betrayal of the imagination, than joining a gym. Before you know it you\u2019ll be slipping into your imagination and going over the various scenarios of your book.<\/p>\n

5. Take a pencil and paper with you as you\u2019ll be stopping every ten seconds to scribble these ideas down. It\u2019s probably a good idea to invest in a pencil sharpener, finances permitting.<\/p>\n

6. Buy a memory stick and type up everything you\u2019ve just written when you get to work because you\u2019ll lose the scraps of paper.<\/p>\n

7. Get a job where you can write in peace and preferably one without too much responsibility. I strongly recommend the public sector. The perfect job is one in which you are able to do eight hours work in three, thus enabling you to write for the other five. This is the closest you\u2019ll ever get to being a regularly paid writer. Feels great, doesn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n

8. Ensure you have a boss who doesn\u2019t mind you being late. (see point 5)<\/p>\n

9. Write a blog. It\u2019s like having a regular mental workout and a good way to track the development of your thoughts. I don\u2019t have a camera and so the blog is the closest thing I have to a photographic album. It\u2019s also a great place to outlet those thoughts you know you\u2019ll never have time to turn into stories but will eat away at you regardless. Like the one about \u2018the strange man who used to crouch down every ten seconds by the side of the road to scribble something down. Nobody knew what he was writing or why he did it but\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

10. Don\u2019t write a list of top ten writing tips when you haven\u2019t had your novel published yet. It\u2019s arrogant, delusional and distracts you from what matters. As does reading funny quotes by Philip Pullman on a Saturday afternoon<\/p>\n

This was originally published as a guest blog for the Literature Network<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Saturday\u2019s Guardian Review they published the ten rules of writing of which my favourite came courtesy of Phillip Pullman: \u2018My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work\u2019. As … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[63,62,61],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","tag-phillip-pullman","tag-the-guardian","tag-top-ten-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2966,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/2966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameskwalker.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}