I have written somewhere north of one thousand two hundred television scripts. Every one of these was written in response to a commission. For some projects, I was invited to invent the characters and the stories. For others, I simply slotted into the production line, producing scripts for an existing show along with a team of other writers. This week on the water In every instance my creative energies were, necessarily, engaged. Yes, I might be given a breakdown detailing the dramatic...
4 days ago • 2 min read
Hello Reader, Two writers. Two sets of memories. One extraordinary story. Learn about their writing and publishing journey. Sheryl James was born with cerebral palsy. She ran two successful Comrades marathons against able-bodied athletes. At 33, she discovered sprinting — and in 2021, stood on the podium at the Tokyo Paralympic Games with a bronze medal around her neck. Beside her, every step of the way, was her mother, Sandy. Unbridling grew out of the journals that Sheryl and Sandy each...
10 days ago • 1 min read
What does your protagonist want? Not what happens to them. Not what you want – which might be to explore themes of enduring human significance. No. What does the person at the centre of your story want – specifically, urgently, to the point where they would do something really unwise to get it? This week on the water If you can answer that question in a single unambiguous sentence, you are in better shape than most writers are at any stage of their work. Because wanting is the engine of...
11 days ago • 5 min read
Some literary advisors instruct you, as creative writers, to use real places in your fiction. If you’re using a particular location, then get the street names right. If your protagonist catches a bus, then make sure to get the number of the bus right, and its route right, and its destination right. In short, give your readers something they can research and verify. This week on the water But we forget that a description of a place in fiction is not something you’d find in an encyclopaedia. A...
18 days ago • 5 min read
I have never been a good political animal. At university, where ideology dominated most debate, I found myself perpetually wrong-footed – not because I lacked opinions, but because I kept noticing things that complicated them. This week on the water Let me give you just one example of what I mean. We – that is, everyone on the left – knew that apartheid was an evil system, imposed by racists who believed that their social engineering would meet all the challenges of a diverse and multi-racial...
25 days ago • 5 min read
There is a particular satisfaction in revision that the euphoria generated by your first draft rarely matches. There’s something about returning to a manuscript, with a scalpel rather than a pen in hand, that yields a kind of pleasure that is almost surgical – not despite its precision, but because of it. A surgeon approaches a patient with just one thing in mind: to make the minimum necessary intervention and produce the maximum effect. And that’s precisely what’s on a writer’s mind when he...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hello Reader, My parents were golf fanatics, and my mom was fond of saying: ‘There’s nothing that humbles you like golf.’ I had a taste of that recently with my swimming. If you read an earlier newsletter of mine, you’ll know that I was part of an adventure swim from Seaforth to Fisherman’s Beach and back, which was turned back before the end because of rising swells and seal activity. At that stage, I was psyched and cocky, disappointed not to be doing the stretch from Windmill to...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
The coot wars have begun, as they do every year at about this time. A coot, for those of you unfamiliar with the breed, is a small black water bird with a distinctive white face – and disproportionately large yellow-green legs and feet. Their claws are long, curved and murderously sharp. A coot is, in other words, a pocket-sized killing machine. This week on the water Every animal on earth, even the meekest herbivore, is moved to violence when it comes to the mating season. It’s obviously...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
It’s not summer yet, here on the Great River Ouse – not quite, and doubtless there will be gloomy days ahead before it finally asserts itself. Yesterday, though, was a perfect forerunner of the real thing – and Trish and I celebrated by going kayaking to Cardington Lock, a mile or so downstream. We interspersed sessions of high-velocity paddling with more contemplative moments, stopping for coffee under the canopy of our favourite horse chestnut, its foliage dotted with its characteristic...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read