Welcome to the Book Log where you will now find, amongst other things:
Reviews of Books I have enjoyed
Notes on My Current Ideas and Projects
Some thoughts on How I Write

As prompted by suggestions from students at schools I have visited recently, here’s the first in another occasional series that will appear here, amongst the peace and quiet of the Book Log…

How I Write: 1. Keeping a Notebook

After I left school I took an art foundation course and then a degree in fine art. I got into the habit of keeping a sketchbook and carrying it with me wherever I went. I soon extended that to a notebook too, so I could write down thoughts and ideas wherever I happened to be – on the bus, the train, in art galleries, sitting in the park etc. I remember once waiting for the 69 bus, which at that time used to begin its route in North Woolwich by the entrance to the foot tunnel that runs under the Thames, where the free ferry used to cross the river (and perhaps still does). There was a man with a cardboard suitcase in his hand. His face was covered in tiny cuts. Fresh wounds, small but deep. He was in a terrible rage, muttering furiously to himself. The muttering broke out into full-throated angry bellowing every now and then. The focus of his fury was unclear. He paced around with his suitcase in his hand and I kept my eyes on the pavement. I watched a pigeon picking at a mush of squashed chips that had been dumped in the gutter then run over by several buses. It wasn’t a pleasant wait. The man with the suitcase was frightening. The pigeon was disgusting. But writing it all down, when I eventually got to the relative safety of the bus, seemed like the best way to capture the strange edgy spirit of that brief moment in North Woolwich in 1982. I haven’t used the incident directly in any fiction I’ve written. But noting it down, trying to find the best words to describe the essence of waiting for the bus that morning, felt strangely significant, as if I’d taken a small step towards something interesting. As for the man with the suitcase, I never saw him again. His story is not mine to know. The pigeon, however, was a regular at the 69 bus stop.