Writing seems to be something a lot of people aspire to do, either for themselves or to make a living out of it, and so I often get questions on the subject. I got just such an email today asking how I learnt to write, and I thought it might be interesting to share my reply, if only to share a funny Tony Hancock quote from a favourite film.
Hi
Have you ever seen Tony Hancock's film The Rebel? If you haven’t, then it’s about a very ordinary guy who decides he wants to be an artist, but he’s bloody terrible and talentless, but just goes for it (the thing he has, which all great people need more than talent, is self-delusion). He moves to Paris and ends up becoming a famous artist (you’d have to watch it to know why). An art critic comes up to him at a show and asks, “How do you mix your paint?” to which Hancock replies, “In a bucket with a big stick”. This pretty much describes how I learnt to write : )
I probably have the writing age of an 8-year-old (I still don’t know what a verb is!), and I still struggle between where and were, and we’re (bloody English!), but somehow, I seem to have calved out a living doing it, and that’s mainly down to effort rather than skill.
I think the only book that I ever read on the subject of writing was The Accidental Life by Terry McDonell (a great book).
Reflecting on my writing, I think it’s sad that the UK outdoor magazines died, and I never really made any effort to elevate what I did in order to write for the US mags, like Outside, etc, but rather just did my own thing (much more money in the latter), but I did enjoy the few bits of ‘proper’ writing I did, like for Alpinist (I later found out that Alpinist used my piece on the Troll wall (The Trolls Gift) as an example of a good piece of writing, which is nice, although such things are a work of both the writer and the editor).
The only creative writing I do now is on my Substack, in between all the boring technical writing, and these pieces are probably what they are due to be written and posted in ten or twenty minutes (good example here). Online is like an email, and not like printing on paper, in that you feel you don’t need to try as hard, as it’s impermanent, and it’s better for that (or at least different in a good way).
Cheers
Andy
Hi Andy, As usual, always enjoy reading your stuff. Are the podcasts taking a backseat now due to family? Or can we look forward to more joyous rambling in the future?