What it's like to write

This from Philip Pullman, author of “His Dark Materials” trilogy, which I love. To read the whole interview, click here.

Thank you, Mr. Pullman. Very clear and wonderful. I especially like this: Then I read it all again and think it’s horrible, and get very depressed. That’s one of the things you have to put up with.

I hear that.

What is a typical day like for you? I’ll get up at about half past seven and take my wife a cup of tea, and have my breakfast at the kitchen table reading the paper. I’ll sit down at my desk at about half past nine and work until it’s time for lunch, with a break for coffee half way through. If I’m lucky I’ll have written three pages by then, and I can fool about with my power tools in the afternoon. If not, it’s back to the desk until the three pages are covered. I write with a ballpoint pen on A4 sized narrow-lined paper. The paper has got to have a grey or blue margin and two holes. I only write on one side, and when I’ve got to the bottom of the last page, I finish the sentence (or write one more) at the top of the next, so that the paper I look at each morning isn’t blank. It’s already beaten. That number of pages amounts, in my writing, to about 1100 words. When I’ve finished a story I’ll type it all on to the computer, editing as I go. Then I read it all again and think it’s horrible, and get very depressed. That’s one of the things you have to put up with. Eventually, after a lot of fiddling, it’s sort of all right, but the best I can do; and that’s when I send it off to the publisher.

categorized in: creativity