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Peter Kinsley

What is EHABIT?

It is information for all who aspire to write novels, history, biography, autobiography, memoirs, investigation etc etc

It means: Everybody Has A Book In Them

And the letter E also stands for Every day. You should try to write something every day, even if it is only a few words in your diary or a journal that you keep, or a book of memorabilia, or a poem, or a page of a book you intend to write, or half a page or even a quarter of a page, before you go to school or to work or in a lunch break or in the evenings or last thing at night, but I can recommend the early mornings.

Arnold Bennett wrote 1,000 words every morning, and went to the Press Club in London for a drink at 9 a.m.

William Somerset Maugham wrote 1,000 words a day and stopped for lunch at mid-day (even aboard a ship!)

The earliest riser was my colleague Geoffrey Bocca (more of him later) who wrote from 5 a.m. until 9 a.m. when in New York, because his telephone would then start to ring, and between 5 a.m. and noon when in France or Spain or England.

Graham Greene averaged 25 words a day on some books, and counted every word every day, as did Ernest Hemingway and many other famous writers, because he wrote slowly and carefully, which is also good advice, given to me by an American writer, Max Crawford: "Slow down. There is no deadline."

In this essay I shall give hints and tips to aspiring writers that I have learnt over the years from fellow writers and acquaintances, in the hope that, in passing them on, they will help you to have your own work published. Note the use of the word "work". Hemingway always referred to his "work", because people (even in publishing) have a butcher, baker, candle-stick maker concept of "work": that it is only when you perspire, punch a time clock and put the hours in that you are "working". In one of his poems, Basil Bunting has a line where someone is saying to a poet: "why don't you get a proper job, as a bus conductor?" or words to that effect.

A word here about publishing: it is extremely difficult at the start of the 21st century to find a publisher, and, I am told, even more difficult to find a literary agent. Publishers lie on their backs, like beetles, waving their arms and legs in the air while smothered in an avalanche of manuscripts. Some writers claim that literary agents have "wall to wall" manuscripts instead of carpets.

The answer, I found, was self-publishing. The money that lesser mortals put into clothes, cars, holidays, jewellery, model making, stamp collecting, etc etc the aspiring writer should put into himself or herself: publish your own work (more of that later).

I have used the words "day", "diary", "journal" and "essay" in the above paragraphs. Remember these words well, for the first three all mean the same, deriving from the word diurnal, which derives from the Latin "diurnale" and "dies", meaning daily.

In English: day, diary, journalist

In French: jour, journal, journaliste

In Italian: giorno, giornale, giornalista

The word essay in English means "to try" in French -- essai, and I shall try to encourage you with more tips and information.

To inspire you, the following authors were self-published in their time:

Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, Lord Byron, Thomas Paine, Zane Grey, William Carlos Williams, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, John Galsworthy, Rudyard Kipling, Horace Walpole, Thackeray, Balzac, Beatrice Potter, William Blake, Ronald Firbank, D.H Lawrence and James Joyce.

They were all dedicated the the art of writing, which is a painful, creative process, and they wrote throughout their lives.

Many professional writers finish a book, have a celebratory beer, coffee or glass of champagne, and then, the very next day, start on page one of a new book. While writing a book they tend not to take a long break away from the task in hand, in case of losing the train of thought and the essential flow of the book. A New York publisher said to me of one author: "We could tell exactly in his book where he broke off to take a vacation."

The best literary advice I got as a 25 year old, about to embark on a novelist's career, came from the aforementioned Geoffrey Bocca, the early riser. I asked him if I should submit an outline to a publisher, or a precis of the plot, or a sample of my writing, or a first chapter and last chapter (publishers who have no time to read books ask all of these of newcomers, believing they can tell at a glance (!) if it is good or not. One well known publisher in London refused to read a manuscript where the main character's name was the title! That would eliminate Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Jane Eyre ... ad infinitum. Another turned down The Lord of the Flies as a tale "about nasty teenage boys on a desert island". Kingsley Amis had a first novel that was refused by every publisher in London).

"Why don't you just write the book", said Bocca. I did, at just over a thousand words a day for sixty days in my sister's kitchen in Belsize Park. Peter Watt of A.P.Watt said: "You've written a good book." "I'm glad you like it," I replied. "Oh, I haven't read it, I have someone who does that," said the son of the world's first literary agent, whose shelves held black tin boxes with the names Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, Richmal Crompton, Sir Arthur Bryant, Pearl S. Buck, and many others. Later in our association Watt asked his secetary to "bring in Kinsley's file" and the poor girl staggered in with her chin on a pile of folders. Watt stood up, looked at the top file and said: "That's Kipling's file. I asked for Kinsley's file," then turned to me and said: "Why is your file not as thick as Kipling's?" "Oh, I'm just starting", I said lamely. My first novel, Three Cheers for Nothing, was sold to Hollywood for fifty thousand dollars (but not filmed) and when the first royalty cheque came in from Collins/Fontana it showed that, after an advance of £100, they had sold 11,600 paperbacks worldwide, and the cheque was for four shillings and elevenpence (about 25 pence today). Collins, the Scottish publisher, was so mean that Raymond Chandler once stood for two weeks outside his house, selling matches from a tray, until Collins paid him more money! My first novel was sent by surface rate from Scotland to Nice, taking two weeks and leaving me 24 hours to correct the manuscript before their deadline!

Arnold Bennett was a great journal keeper, and, like Andre Gide, the journals are often more interesting than their books. Bennet records that he tried to share a mistress in Paris with Willie Maugham, who was not amused when told he could have her on only one certain day of the week, as he and another chap had her on two of her other days. He once corrected Maugham's French (WSM was born in the British Embassy in Paris, his first language was French) on the use of epergne, a fruit bowl, and WSM went "grey with rage" that this Northern provincial upstart should correct his French!

Maugham advised all young writers to do the daily stint, turning his back on the view, facing the jackets of his own published books pinned to the wall before his eyes, so that, when he flagged, he could look up and say: "I've done it before. I can do it again"

Maugham wrote for exactly three hours each morning. Both he and Arnold Bennett looked upon writing as a business, keeping regular hours, keeping their eyes on their fortunes (both had yachts, both lived on the French Riviera). They were writing machines.

Ernest Hemingway gave this excellent advice to writers: Write the best sentence you can, every time. Always stop when you know what the next sentence is going to be, so that you can make an easy start next day and go straight back into it. Hemingway as a young man wrote in cafes in Paris in the early mornings. Later he wrote standing up at a lectern, and if his publisher enquired how it was going, he gave him his word count!

Honore de Balzac, like Marcel Proust, wrote at night. Their reason was that the noise of horses' hooves on the cobblestones distracted them. Proust build a cork-lined room to deaden noise even more, and Igor Stravinsky composed with seven plywood partitions between him and the kitchen in case he smelt cabbage -- or anything else -- cooking!

Andre Gide the keeper of journals, recorded the tale of a Paris dandy, walking down the Champs Elysses in a beautifully cut morning coat, and when it was admired by friends, said: "My dear, if I took Communion, I should burst!" Gide records another Paris character who strolled about with a lobster on a lead, and when asked the reason, replied: "Because it cannot bark, and knows the secrets of the deep.".

Gide, like Arnold Bennett always wanted to be somewhere other than where he was: in Normandy Gide wanted to be in Algiers, and in Algiers he longed to be in Paris, and in Paris he craved the countryside of Normandy. Bennett in Paris dreamed of his Northern mill towns, and London, and in London wanted to be on the French Riviera or in Paris.

So you will have gathered that every writer has his or her own method of working: Gide and Proust who had private incomes all their lives, the first spreading straw on the cobbles the second in his cork-lined room attended by a maid and a chauffeur, and Arnold Bennett, the son of a potter, finishing his day's work by 9 a.m. and producing a masterpiece "The Old Wives' Tale, simply by watching the habits of two old ladies in a Paris restaurant and imagining their private lives. The point is that it does not matter where or when you write, but you must do it, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, and let the pages mount up. Bear in mind that one page a day is 365 pages at the end of the year, and half a page a day is sufficient to make a novel of 182 pages, with a day off for your birthday! Whether you do it with a pencil, (John Braine wrote Room at the Top in pencil in a school exercise book), a ball-point pen, an expensive fountain pen, a typewriter or a computer it does not matter, so long as the words go on the paper. Nor is it necessary to have good surroundings: the view from Samuel Beckett's window in his Paris apartment was of a prison yard where the prisoners exercised daily; The Ballad of Reading Jail was written by Oscar Wilde while he was doing hard labour in Reading Jail; the Pisan Cantos were written by Ezra Pound while he was hanging in a wire cage in an American army prisoner of war camp in Italy, and the beautiful Irish prose of Patrick Pearse "to my dear mother" was written the night before he was hanged.

As a diarist, put your thoughts and opinions down each day, and any stories or funny anecdotes or the antics of people you may hear of or witness, and, even if you never publish, I am sure you will find it interesting to read in old age when you have forgotten all the things you did and said and saw and heard. It is said that confession is good for the soul, and if you can own up about yourself -- very few people can -- you may well find it brings solace, even if it is just confined to your diary or journal.. There's therapy for you: for the price of some paper and a pen.

Ignore the words of Oscar Wilde, "no good ever came of good advice" (which he stole from Byron), and look what happened to both cynics: Wilde refused good advice not to sue Bosie's father, and ended up doing hard labour, and Byron, against all advice, went off to the wars in Greece and ended up pickled in a barrel of brandy.

I have written about my colleague Geoffrey Bocca, a prolific novelist who died before he could write his wartime memoirs "The Lark Above, the Guns Below" -- the title from a poem by Wilfred Owen -- which is a pity because he was shot down over Arnhem, escaped from Stalag 11B, and was with Richard Dimbleby on a jeep, ahead of the army, driving through sniper fire in Berlin, while Dimbleby made his famous broadcast. Lunching in Scott's restaurant in Piccadilly, Ian Fleming said to him: "For goodness' sake, Geoffey, do you really think I am going to get up at five o'clock in the morning and write novels?" But he did take Bocca's advice and the James Bond books were the result, although the London book reviewers ridiculed his early work, and it was only much later when a small paragraph appeared in Time magazine to the effect that, for relaxation, the American President Jack Kennedy read "Britain's Ian Fleming" that the series took off and the films were made.

The rest is history, as they say, except to add that Fleming had also taken Somerset Maugham's advice when staying with him in the villa Mauresque in Cap Ferrat: above his writing desk, in his house in Jamaica, Goldeneye, were pinned the covers of his books, and the magnificent distracting view could not be seen while he worked in the early mornings...

There are subjective and objective ways of writing: The subjective like James Joyce in Portrait of the Artist or in Ulysses, and the objective as with Shakespeare, whose own life was shrouded in mystery, for the true artist produced the work of art and then stood back, paring his nails, letting the world judge what he had produced. In David Copperfield the character is Charles Dickens, being subjective, for it is based on his own life, but in A Christmas Carol he was objective, and also writing for money because at a penny a line he stretches "Marley was dead, dead as a doornail..." into as many lines as possible, the art of repetition!

Sailors, firemen and long-term prisoners are often good writers because they have read so much, off watch, on duty waiting for the fire bell to ring or marking time in the cell. That is because they read, read, read. (see Alan Sillitoe's advice on reading). The reading also improves spelling. Do not worry unduly, however, if your spelling is weak: F. Scott Fitzerald would spell a word three different ways on one page of his manuscript -- and he was educated at Princeton University!

Two last pieces of advice: before starting each day read a few paragraphs of a writer you admire and try to emulate his or her prose style (there is nothing wrong in copying style from a master; the French Impressionists learnt their style from Turner, an Englishman, and Turner started as an apprentice painter of the doctors' doors in Harley Street). Three classic prose writers are Alexander Kinglake (Churchill's favourite writer) who produced the many-volumed history of the Crimean war; Evelyn Waugh and Patrick Leigh Fermore. They are the masters.

Try to avoid the use of foreign words: mistakes are often made between the writer, the typists, the editor, and the printer, for they have a tendancy to alter them, believing they know best. If you do use foreign words, check a first, second and even a third proof before letting it go back to the printer, because the slightest error by you will be picked up by book reviewers who will pounce on one wrong word in a 100,000 word book and hold the writer up to ridicule, for that is their wont and their mission: to teach authors about writing. But as Mr. George Bernard Shaw (who also published his own plays and books) said: "Those who can - do. Those who can't - teach!