How I discovered the bliss-bestowing truth about life while writing ads for Singapore Airlines
It was around the end of the last century that I embarked on my journey to the East in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. I had been told I should present myself at the gates of a Zen monastery in Japan and there prostrate myself. The monks, they said, would then...
When You Die and the Angel Gives You the Form, Don’t Tick Option ‘C.’
What does it all mean? This crazy, ineffable mystery of being? What does it mean? Really? As far as I can make out, we have three options. Option A. We are just lumps of meat with a pilot light that flickers for a brief fragment of time before going out. We were...
A Cat called Bartok (Or how to avoid writing that sounds like writing
Five years before he died, Elmore Leonard published his Ten Rules of Writing. I agree with them all, but happily break most of them on the grounds that there is no ‘ Writing Cop’. But of his ten rules the one I like best is Rule №11: When you find writing that sounds...
‘Show don’t tell’, was invented by Volkswagen in 1959
Every creative writing course worth its salt will urge you to ‘show don’t tell’. But you would be hard-pressed to find a better demonstration of the concept than this old advertisement for Volkswagen, which appeared in 1959. At the heart of the ‘show don’t tell’...
‘Do this,’ the hotel clerk said, ‘and you will end up murdered.’
So I did it. He really would have preferred me not to go out at night at all. Or during the day, for that matter. But blessed with the immortality (stupidity) of youth I insisted. So he said, on no account should I hail a cab in the street. Safest would be to order...
The Greatest Writing Textbook was Written in 1611 by 47 Men.
It’s Called the Bible. Long ago when I was lost in the Disenchanted Forest seeking ways to write my first novel, I read many books that claimed to teach me how to write fiction. I quickly forgot most of them but there was one that made a lasting impression on me. The...