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17.5.15

Ace Psychotherapist Jim Davis on 'Research.'



Naughty-but-NICE: Research and cream cake.

Let me admit from the outset that I can be a suspicious person at times, and no more so when something is agreed by everybody as being thoroughly good! A bit like the ‘man in the crowd’ (see last issue’s Alterego column) I find myself taking exception.  Call me rebellious or simply curious, but certainly suspicious.  An example of this that’s been bothering me for some time is research.  The two most common sentiments I hear about research into psychotherapy is that it’s good and that it’s boring – unlike cream cake.  In fact research and cream cake seem the very opposite of each other - one moral but dull, the other immoral but enjoyable.  The cream cake however is definitely not good for us, whilst research apparently is.  But is it, and if so how?

Only 15% of factors responsible for change in therapy are about the therapeutic modality, and most therapies are roughly equivalent in effectiveness.  Why then is so much interest shown in research aimed at establishing the efficacy of any particular modality?  I’ve certainly never read any research project which concluded that the approach studied wasn’t effective.  There is of course a political and economic value of such research in terms of approval by the eponymous Mr. NICE.  His blessing might lead to the enhanced status of TA, with all the implications for the financial benefits to TA therapists and trainers.  But perhaps Mr. NICE is, like the cream cake, more naughty-and-NICE.  After all he’s wedded to that glamorous medical model Mrs. NICE and her modernist views on the causes and effects of objective truth.  Together they live off the outcome measured offspring born from randomized control trials.  Nice they are not!
Surely it’s impossible to design randomized control trial research studies that convince Mr and Mrs NICE that TA cures depression, for example, when there are several different schools of TA using significantly different theories and methods.  Even amongst TA therapists who belong to the same school of TA there will inevitably be significant variations in the therapeutic relationship, and thus the therapy itself.  In this sense TA is very different from Mr. NICE’s anointed ones - anti-depressant ‘therapy’, and the more regularized methods of CBT, EMDR, or mindfulness.  With these modalities clients do get the same treatment, a manual-ised conformity amongst practitioners (seen as a good thing!) and thus amenable to the trials (but also tribulations) of randomized control.
Do we really want to get into bed with Mr. (or Mrs.) NICE, and if so at what cost?  Is this where we want to invest our research energy?  Will we even be successful, or will it simply lead us up to a dark corner of a double-blind alley down a dead-end road?  More importantly, does it divert us from more valuable purposes of research?
For me there are two fundamental values of research, neither of which involve ‘proving’ the truth of the efficacy of particular modalities.  The first is the advancement of our understanding of psychological problems and how psychotherapy ‘works’.  There is a burgeoning development of qualitative research methods for pursuing this agenda that are gaining validity within the research community – methods that embrace relational principles of engagement (eg participant observation),  the importance of experience (of both client and researcher) and the inevitability of uncertainty (eg regarding ‘truth’).  This is the research I find more palatable, even if it’s not the NICE’s cream cake of choice, not their cup of tea.
This leads me back to the ‘research is good but dull’ point from earlier.  My second fundamental value of research is how it contributes too and enriches the process of informed discussion, intrigue and controversy within our therapeutic community regarding the development of theory and practice.  A paradigmatic example of this is the research of Daniel Stern which prompted a rich, wide-ranging and contentious discussion around key issues of child development and the implications for adult psychotherapy.  His critique of Margaret Mahler’s ideas was significant not because it established a ‘truth’ – in contrast to Mahler’s ‘errors’ – but rather because of the very rich discussion it fostered.  Stern’s ideas subsequently became the focus of further challenge and criticism in an ongoing turn of the epistemological wheel.  This is why the foundation stone of any good research project is the review of the literature, the main purpose of which is to locate the project within ongoing debates about the subject matter, to identify a problem, lacuna or interesting question remaining unaddressed etc.  In this way research is founded on what is of interest, controversial even, and thus much more likely to make research enjoyable - not NICE but simply nice!

And now back to enjoying my cream cake and reading both Kieran Nolan’s (PTSTA) fascinating Ph.D research dissertation on OCD, and Cathy McQuaid’s (TSTA) illuminating research based book on psychotherapy training.

29.3.15

FIRST GUEST POST BY THE AMAZING JIM DAVIS-SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS FOR THE JOURNAL OF TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Hair loss: a case study of mourning and melancholia in the countertransference.

Committed as I am to the significance of the body and countertransference in my work as a transactional analyst, I simply cannot avoid the painful subject of hair loss!   My column today constitutes a soul-searching examination and, hopefully, a working through of my issues around hair loss in the service of my more hirsute male clients, especially those sporting their newly fashionable beards.
Notice how, from the start, I use the anodyne term ‘hair loss’ rather than the darker, more shameful ‘balding’ or even the terminal ‘bald’.  There I’ve said it, Worden’s first task of mourning, ie acknowledging the reality of the loss!  The trouble with models involving stages however is that  treading on the first step  immediately raises fears of the following and worse, final steps – ultimately (qua Worden) presumably a wig!
Anyway, we talk about ‘losing’ our hair, but we don’t simply misplace it, like our keys, or as in ‘bloody hell it was there a moment ago’, or even ‘well it was on the top of my head when I went to bed last night’!  We don’t actually lose our hair, it simply stops growing.  Perversely it only stops growing on the tops of our heads – where we want it to be – and grows more in places we don’t want such as our ears and noses, like some sick weird proof that either god doesn’t exist, or is a woman!
And then there’s the I’m OK, you’re not OK discrimination against those of us ‘losing’ our hair, like the plethora of hair ‘care’ products for people with lots of hair – shampoos and conditioners giving it more body and shine so they can shake their lustrous locks, constantly sweeping it back from over their faces in faux annoyance – ‘cos they’re worth it!  No such ‘care’ for balding people, presumably ‘cos we’re not worth it!
Hairy heads and smooth heads - hairy people and smooth people.  If you think about it hairy people are more like our evolutionary ancestors, for example the apes and gorillas, who had hair all over their bodies.  We’ve all seen those depictions of evolutionary development, you know the ones where the figures gradually change from hairy creatures on all fours to hairy things gradually standing up, and onto the upright and smoother homo sapiens.  We’ve advanced in becoming smoother and less hairy.   I rest my case….or maybe not quite yet …..
As a contribution to this ongoing evolutionary progress I propose a raft of new policies for the next government to consider:
·       the more hair you have the more tax you pay
·       hair-free zones and banning of hairy people in public places - as with smoking
·       dedicated parking spaces for the sole use of bald people
·       enhanced evolutionary-friendly child benefits for families with balding fathers
·       creation of an Axis 2 DSM diagnosis – EHD (Excessive Hair Disorder)
·       establishment of special centres where hairies can get free hair removal, therapy and re-education classes about who’s worth it and who isn’t. 
However, persistent hairy ‘extremists’ would be banned from owning cars, bycicles and belts so they’d have to run for buses and fall over and everyone would laugh at them. (Let’s face it, I might as well give full reign to my envious Child ego state here).   By that time the  queen will have passed on, William will be king and called His Royal Hairless-ness, and a whole new generation of bald therapists will be trained up to work with Excessive Hair Disorder.  I will have worked through my countertransference, and the world will be a better place.

Alterego









Ignore history at the World's peril!

I think it was Winston Churchill who said the best argument against democracy was a five minute conversation with an average voter.  I guess he was referring to-stupidity or lack of imagination, maybe they're the same thing?

A recent episode on 15th January of BBC's 'Question Time' left me with a very similar feeling.  And also left me with the sour taste that I get often these days when watching television-that I am in fact watching a form of blatant propaganda.  That I am being sold an idea without foundation that is accepted as fact uncritically and is then foisted upon me by particularised use of language comprising linguistic signifiers that purport to be established world views.  These signifiers refer to 'the terrorists,' 'the insurgents', 'jihadists', or to the 'economy'  and to 'economic data' as if it refers to something concretised and actual whereas in fact it refers to wholly imaginary concepts devised at several levels removed for inclusion in a script.
The panel comprised:
Anna Soubry MP, Douglas Alexander MP, Baroness Brinton, Mehdi Hasan and David Starkey, chaired as ever by the wonderful David Dimblebly.
The question was to do with the murder of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris and what startled me was the almost incredible absence of the historical narrative that led us to these present conditions.

the is the real timeline:


  • the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan
  • The arming and support, by western powers, of the Mujahideen
  • The invasion of Iraq 1
  • The attempted capture in Somalia of General Aideed
  • The invasion of Iraq 2 Desert Storm
  • The continuing existence, illegally, of Guantanamo Bay
  • The invasion of Afghanistan by the Americans and their alllies primarily UK.
  • Abu Graib Prison and the sexual humiliation of young muslims by American guards some of whom were female
  • The Bush Cabinet's legitimisation of torture and illegal rendition of 'suspects' with British security services cooperation.
  • The ongoing American support for the illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian Land by the State of Israel
  • Assassinations by drone


Do we not understand that, by any marker of morality or acceptable diplomacy the American and UK governments have themselves behaved as terrorists?  That is, specifically creating fear and terror in the hearts and minds of entire populations.  But without the narrative of history we have no explanation for the madness that besieges us.

















THE EVERY DAY CARRY (EDC)


THIS IS WHAT I CARRY ON A WORK DAY!
LIFEVENTURE THERMOS CUP/LEATHERMAN CHARGE MULTITOOL/TACTILE TURN PEN IN TEAL FINISH/IPHONE 5/RHODIA WEB NOTEBOOK WITH QUIVER PEN HOLDER/DOANE PAPER GRID+LINES NOTEBOOK/L10C LED TORCH/BOSE NOISE ISOLATING EARBUDS/MOLESKINE A5 NOTEBOOK/SPECTACLES CASE/TEETH FLOSSER/ASSORTMENT OF PENS IN PLASTIC WALLET

THIS IS WHAT I CARRY IT ALL IN:  AN OSPREY VIPER 13 LTR



8.3.15

New writers on 'The Art of Balance' blog!

Getting people to do stuff is really hard.  Particularly if they are really talented clever people and you're not offering them any money.  But I have managed to bag two really, really clever people who will be posting on this blog hopefully on a regular basis.
Our first post will be from Jim Davis, my beloved bro and friend.  I cannot begin to overstate how privileged I feel about Jim writing for this blog.  He is one of the most skilled psychotherapists in the field of relationship counselling.  He is probably one of the UK's best Backgammon players who only missed winning the British championship some years ago because I was mithering him about getting me to my train on time while he was playing the freaking final.  Yes that's the kind of guy I am!

My other contributor is Alan Moore, no, not the Northamptonshire comics wizard but a writer from Blackpool who writes with passion and grit like a modern Jonathan Swift with little time for the old Etonians screwing the country right now and their Bankster friends.

I truly hope you enjoy their contributions in the similar way that Lois Mansfield's brilliant post became one of the most popular on this blog.  Whatever happened to Lois?  Maybe I need to get her back here.  She's a lot prettier than Jim and Alan as well.  But what they have in common is they are all very smart and incredibly gifted writers.  Thanks for being here.

31.1.15

My Favourite Pen List from The Pen Addict Blog

Top 5 Pen Recommendations - Overall
  1. Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38 mm - Vibrant, smooth, and consistent.
  2. TWSBI 580 - Hard to beat the value and versatility.
  3. *NEW Ti2 TechLiner - This pen has a real shot at the #1 overall spot.
  4. *NEW Retro 51 Tornado - I always have one in my backpack. It's about time it makes this list.
  5. Ohto Graphic Liner - Still amazed how good this pen is.
Top 5 Micro Gel Ink Pens
  1. Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38 mm - More consistent than the Hi-Tec-C.
  2. Pilot Hi-Tec-C 0.3 mm - The finest, crispest lines going.
  3. Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.4 mm - Super sharp lines, great clip. Needs more love!
  4. *NEW Uni-ball Signo RT1 - If you are lucky you can find these in your local office supply store.
  5. Pilot Juice 0.38 mm - A better option than the G2. By far.
Top 5 Pens In The Store
  1. Uni-ball Jetstream - Stay away from the 1.0 mm.
  2. Uni-ball Signo 207 - "But what can I buy at Staples that is good?" This.
  3. *NEW Uni-ball Vision Elite - I've been overlooking this one for too long. The new BLX line got me back on track.
  4. Sharpie Pen - Would be #1 if it was more durable.
  5. Pentel EnerGel - People swear by their EnerGels.
Top 5 Fountain Pens - No-Brainers
  1. TWSBI 580 - TWSBI should be Taiwanese for "Great value."
  2. *NEW Sailor 1911 - Can't go wrong with the standard barrel or the Black Luster model, which I own. Amazing nib.
  3. Lamy 2000 - The perfect combination of style, performance, and price.
  4. Pilot Vanishing Point - An elite writer, especially on the fine end of the spectrum.
  5. Edison Beaumont - From "I'm not sure" to "I can't put it down" in short order.
Top 5 Fountain Pens - Some-Brainers
  1. Edison Menlo - Great build and filling system plus fully customizable.
  2. *NEW Nakaya Portable - My first Nakaya. I made the right choice.
  3. *NEW Pilot Murex - Is this even fair? This pen elicits emotions I can't begin to explain.
  4. Pilot Custom Heritage 912 - The PO nib is that good.
  5. Franklin-Christoph Model 40 Pocket - Step up your eyedropper game. Masuyama nib option to boot.
Top 5 Fountain Pen Inks
  1. Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-Kai - Blue Black inks are my favorites, and this one tops them all.
  2. Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa - I swap inks a lot and this one always makes the rotation.
  3. *NEW P.W. Akkerman #8 Diep-Duinwaterblauw - Amazing color and shading with this one and easier to come by than ever before.
  4. Sailor Sky High - Better than Kon-Peki? I think so. Also, is it fair to keep discontinued inks on this list?
  5. *NEW Sailor Yama-dori - I've never been a teal guy but red sheen on blue inks is hot.
Top 5 Blue Black Fountain Pen Inks
  1. Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-Kai - It tops my overall ink list too.
  2. *NEW P.W. Akkerman #8 Diep-Duinwaterblauw
  3. Sailor Blue Black - I've come around on this one and love it in my Sailor pens.
  4. Pelikan Blue Black - Not available in the US but worth tracking down.
  5. Lamy Blue Black - One of the best bangs for your buck.
Top 5 Plastic Tip Pens
  1. Kuretake Zig Cartoonist Mangaka - One of the biggest surprises I have tested.
  2. Sakura Pigma Micron - Everyone can, and does, use Microns.
  3. Copic Multiliner SP - Beautiful and refillable...and expensive.
  4. Sharpie Pen - Readily available and solid choice.
  5. Uni Pin - Solid entry level drawing pen.
Top 5 Paper Products
  1. Doane Paper Idea Journal - Beautiful, durable, and portable.
  2. Rhodia Dot Pad - My favorite fountain pen paper.
  3. Field Notes Memo Books - Love the seasonal releases.
  4. Maruman Mnemosyne Inspiration - As good as Rhodia and more portable, but costs more.
  5. Tomoe River Paper - Might be #1 when it becomes readily available in more formats.
Top 5 Multi Pens
  1. Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto - So many options and a great refill makes it tough to beat.
  2. Uni Style Fit - Late to the game but compares well to the Coleto.
  3. Zebra Sharbo X - Only cost (initial and ongoing) keeps this from being #1.
  4. Uni-ball Jetstream - The best ballpoint multi pen option by far.
  5. Zebra Prefill - If you like the Sarasa Clip this is as close as you will get in a multi pen.
Top 5 Ballpoint Pens
  1. Uni-ball Jetstream 0.5 mm - Sharp, fine and solid lines. Elite, but not for everyone.
  2. Pilot Acroball 0.5 mm - More like a 1A with the Jetstream.
  3. Pentel Vicuna 0.7 mm - A big surprise with its pitch black ink.
  4. Pilot Dr. Grip 0.7 mm - The best of the traditional ballpoints.
  5. Zebra Surari 0.5 mm - 0.5 mm or nothing for the Surari.
*NEW Top 5 Roller Ball Pens
  1. Retro 51 Tornado - This may be the most recommended pen on this entire page.
  2. Morning Glory Mach 3 - Extremely underrated pen. In fact, I need to stock up on a few more.
  3. Uni-ball Vision Elite - A great writer with an impressive feature set.
  4. Lamy Tipo - Surprisingly good stock refill, also swappable for G2 compatible refills.
  5. Kaweco AL Sport - The pocket rocket of pens.
Top 5 Kickstarter Pens
  1. Ti2 TechLiner - I'm in love with my Kickstarter gonzodized version.
  2. Karas Kustoms Render K - Hard to beat the simple beauty of the Render K.
  3. Tactile Turn Mover - A complete surprise, and an amazing grip.
  4. BIGiDESIGN Solid Titanium Pen + Stylus - Refills galore fit the Ti.
  5. *NEW Karas Customs INK - Brand new and so good.
Top 5 Extreme Weather Pens
  1. Tombow Airpress - My pressurized refill pen of choice.
  2. Fisher Space Pen - The classic, but not the best writer.
  3. Uni-ball Power Tank - Writes great, could use a more durable barrel.
  4. Tombow Airpress Apro - Smaller, slimmer sibling of the Airpress.
  5. Pilot Down Force - Solid clip and barrel, average writer.
Sponsors









3.12.14

Isaiah Berlin

'Why live thus and not otherwise? Why should one obey this authority rather than some other, or none? Once the intellect is permitted to raise these disturbing issues there is no holding it; once the first move has been made there is no help, the rot has set in for good.'

The Crooked Timber of Humanity by Isaiah Berlin

18.10.14

THE HORN-CALL OF THE ALL ENCIRCLING FEMININE!

THOUGHTS UPON ENCOUNTERING THE RECLINING NUDE BY HENRY MOORE AT UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA WHILE OUT WALKING WITH MY SON


Of all the songs held in the hearts of men,
There’s one that goes down deeper than the rest.
The song that fills their mouths and ears.  Oh how
They stumble with its harmonies and chords!

Mischievous boys cavorting in the choir.
Men follow its tunes like stubborn, burdened mules
Led by the halter to the sacred pools
Where flow the words that form the song of LOVE


The horn-call of the all-encircling feminine.
First taught them by their mother’s long ago-
Clamped like limpets on her milky breasts
Man and boy have sucked from those sacred jugs

All the dark and bright they’ll ever know.


17.8.14

POEM-MAD MUCOID MONSTER


Some of the best advice for writers I've ever seen! (From the theguardian.com)

Ten rules for writing fiction 
Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray. Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, we asked authors for their personal dos and don'ts Read the second part of the article here
Illustration: Andrzej Krauze
Elmore Leonard : Using adverbs is a mortal sin
1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2 Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction . A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, but it's OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: "I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks."
3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs".
5 Keep your exclamation points ­under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
6 Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose". This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apos­trophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavour of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.
8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", what do the "Ameri­can and the girl with him" look like? "She had taken off her hat and put it on the table." That's the only reference to a physical description in the story.
9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is published next month by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Diana Athill
1 Read it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out – they can be got right only by ear).
2 Cut (perhaps that should be CUT): only by having no ­inessential words can every essential word be made to count.
3 You don't always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they'd be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it's the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.)
Margaret Atwood
1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.
2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.
3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.
4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.
5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.
6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.
7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.
8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.
9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.
10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.
Roddy Doyle
1 Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph ­–
3 Until you get to Page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the job.
4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy.
5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.
6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said".
7 Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It's research.
8 Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.
9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet.
10 Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.
Helen Dunmore
1 Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.
2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.
3 Read Keats's letters.
4 Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.
5 Learn poems by heart.
6 Join professional organisations which advance the collective rights of authors.
7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.
8 If you fear that taking care of your children and household will damage your writing, think of JG Ballard.
9 Don't worry about posterity – as Larkin (no sentimentalist) observed "What will survive of us is love".
Geoff Dyer
1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job."
2 Don't write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris, dans les cafés . . . Since then I've developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.
3 Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.
4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great auto­correct files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes  ­"photography" and so on. ­Genius!
5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.
6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.
7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.
8 Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.
9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it.
10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance. But writing is all about ­perseverance. You've got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of ­going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of ­postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.
Anne Enright
1 The first 12 years are the worst.
2 The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.
5 Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.
6 Try to be accurate about stuff.
7 Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
8 You can also do all that with whiskey.
9 Have fun.
10 Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.
Richard Ford
1 Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.
2 Don't have children.
3 Don't read your reviews.
4 Don't write reviews. (Your judgment's always tainted.)
5 Don't have arguments with your wife in the morning, or late at night.
6 Don't drink and write at the same time.
7 Don't write letters to the editor. (No one cares.)
8 Don't wish ill on your colleagues.
9 Try to think of others' good luck as encouragement to yourself.
10 Don't take any shit if you can ­possibly help it.
Jonathan Franzen
1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
2 Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.
3 Never use the word "then" as a ­conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.
4 Write in the third person unless a ­really distinctive first-person voice ­offers itself irresistibly.
5 When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.
6 The most purely autobiographical ­fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto­biographical story than "The Meta­morphosis".
7 You see more sitting still than chasing after.
8 It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
10 You have to love before you can be relentless.
Esther Freud
1 Cut out the metaphors and similes. In my first book I promised myself I wouldn't use any and I slipped up ­during a sunset in chapter 11. I still blush when I come across it.
2 A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn't spin a bit of magic, it's missing something.
3 Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life.
4 Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don't let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won't matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.
5 Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key.
6 Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too.
7 Never forget, even your own rules are there to be broken.
Neil Gaiman
1 Write.
2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7 Laugh at your own jokes.
8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
David Hare
1 Write only when you have something to say.
2 Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.
3 Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.
4 If nobody will put your play on, put it on yourself.
5 Jokes are like hands and feet for a painter. They may not be what you want to end up doing but you have to master them in the meanwhile.
6 Theatre primarily belongs to the young.
7 No one has ever achieved consistency as a screenwriter.
8 Never go to a TV personality festival masquerading as a literary festival.
9 Never complain of being misunderstood. You can choose to be understood, or you can choose not to.
10 The two most depressing words in the English language are "literary fiction".
PD James
1 Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.
2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.
3 Don't just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.
4 Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.
5 Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.
AL Kennedy
1 Have humility. Older/more ­experienced/more convincing writers may offer rules and varieties of advice. ­Consider what they say. However, don't automatically give them charge of your brain, or anything else – they might be bitter, twisted, burned-out, manipulative, or just not very like you.
2 Have more humility. Remember you don't know the limits of your own abilities. Successful or not, if you keep pushing beyond yourself, you will enrich your own life – and maybe even please a few strangers.
3 Defend others. You can, of course, steal stories and attributes from family and friends, fill in filecards after lovemaking and so forth. It might be better to celebrate those you love – and love itself – by writing in such a way that everyone keeps their privacy and dignity intact.
4 Defend your work. Organisations, institutions and individuals will often think they know best about your work – especially if they are paying you. When you genuinely believe their decisions would damage your work – walk away. Run away. The money doesn't matter that much.
5 Defend yourself. Find out what keeps you happy, motivated and creative.
6 Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.
7 Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and ­irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes.
8 Be without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones ­until they behave – then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you'll get is silence.
9 Remember you love writing. It wouldn't be worth it if you didn't. If the love fades, do what you need to and get it back.
10 Remember writing doesn't love you. It doesn't care. Nevertheless, it can behave with remarkable generosity. Speak well of it, encourage others, pass it on.
Read the second part of the article here

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