Toby Litt's Blog, page 2
April 11, 2022
Radio, Radio
Two fun things you can listen to, if you feel like it.
On Friday 8th April, I appeared on the 20th Anniversary Edition of Radio 3’s The Verb.
It’s always a delight to hang out with Ian McMillan, and to be in the studio with the other guests.
For this episode, I was first asked to imagine twenty years into the future. I said, ‘Yes, but it’ll be really depressing.’ They said, ‘Can you make it funny, too?’ So I did my best – throwing some Riddley Walker, Finnegans Wake, Alan Garner, Captain Caveman, and anything else I could think of into the gumbo.
You can listen here. My bit starts around 11:30 minutes in.
On Sunday 10th April, my songwriting partner Emily Hall was featured on Radio 3’s The Listening Service. It’s a fascinating programme about Song Cycles and Concept Albums. Emily spoke about the three cycles that we’ve written, so far (Befalling, Lifecycle, Rest). That’s listenable here. Emily’s bit starts around 14 minutes in.
You can also listen to some of the songs in this playlist.
March 31, 2022
Margaret Atwood and Lots of Other Writers
Lucky me, last week I interviewed Margaret Atwood for Writers Rebel.
In the days before this, I kept thinking, ‘What would I ask George Orwell, if I got the chance?’
This changed to, ‘Fuck, it’s Margaret Atwood – isn’t that enough?’
I also thought, ‘Is Margaret Atwood the most obviously canonized writer alive?’
It’s pretty hard to imagine The Handmaid’s Tale (not to mention all her other novels, short stories and poems) being forgotten in five or six generations.
I’d been warned that Atwood could be harsh. And it’s true that if you misspeak, she picks you up on it. If you’re intellectually lazy, you’ll receive correction. But she was engaged, energized and full of good sense.
Not everything she said was what Extinction Rebellion would want her to say – she’s about sensibly transitioning away from oil, rather than dropping it within two or three years.
But she was more than happy to hold up our poster –

Incidentally, those words are the banner under which Writers Rebel will be gathering on April 15th.
I’ll be there, if you’re able to make it along. So will all these good people:

A few days later, I took part in this panel on writing, publishing, independence and game-writing for the University of Bedford. It was great to hear from Adam Croft and Emily Short about their kinds of writing. (Thanks to Tim Jarvis for inviting me.)
I spoke a bit about A Writer’s Diary, which is ongoing. In fact, I think it’s getting to what I think are the really good bits.
You can sign up here.
https://awritersdiary.substack.com/friends
Until next time.
March 1, 2022
A Writer’s Diary – Februar Q&A
The second Discussion Thread took place on Substack, on Friday 25th February. The next one will be Friday 25th March.
Hello Grab-baggers,
as it’s the last Friday of February, I’m sticking my head out again – from behind the pages of the Diary – to see how you’re doing, and hear what you’re thinking.
This month, I’d like to start up a discussion thread about diary writing. Not just this diary. Not just my writing. Any diary (or journal), and any writing.
Do you keep a diary, journal, daybook or blog? Has your approach to it changed over the years? Who is your favourite diarist? What are the best things about writing that has been set down day-to-day, without much redrafting?
I’ll be here from 4pm onwards, but feel free to post questions straight away.
All best,
Toby
Ric
Hi Toby,
I can’t be around at 4, but would like to add a comment-question anyway.
Firstly to say I’ve really been enjoying receiving these thought-parcels in my inbox every day, thanks.
As for journal-keeping – I’ve kept a journal (I currently swear by the Leuchtturm 1917 Jottbook Medium (A5) – nice enough to take care of, not so nice you can’t mess it up a bit) since 2002. I treasure it as a space in which I can write anything, no matter how ridiculous – it is a sandpit in which I can do whatever I want / try out new things or record nonsensical thoughts. Often the joy is in writing out the nonsensical thought – though I think I used to hold back from writing such things because I thought everything I wrote had to be ‘for’ ‘something’.
Do you use your journal to try out new / ridiculous things? And has the process of publishing A Writer’s Diary, changed the way you interract with your journal at all – do you feel in some ways like you are performing? Or maybe you feel like writing in a journal is always a performance?
Thanks
Ric
Dear Ric,
thanks for your questions. Your phrase ‘thought-parcels’ is great for a lot of the Diary entries. It makes me think of sweet pastries (perhaps because I had a very delicious one in Russell Square this afternoon).
Yes, it’s exactly for new things that I use my diary. There’s a certain amount of average grumbling that goes on, in my own grab-bag days. (Such a release.) But very often I’ll be thinking of a new way of paying attention to something. There will be a subject I know I haven’t mentioned in a while, or ever.
I’m probably not as formally playful as in A Writer’s Diary. A few of the upcoming Fundays (on Sundays) are in very complex forms. All, however, were written within a couple of hours. I haven’t included anything that took days, just to try and pass it off as a first draft.
Since starting A Writer’s Diary, I’ve been more free in what I’ve put down on the page. In fact, I’ve started keeping two separate diaries. One of them is like my old diary, the other one is much more like AWD. And maybe, as you suggest, the second is more performative – more aware of potential readers, even if only imaginary.
I have been repeatedly tempted by Lechtturm notebooks, but I find them a bit intimidating. They seem to have lots of useful lines on the opening pages that I have no cause to use. Their general air is technical. Is that one of the reasons you like them?
All best,
Toby
Susanna
Hi, also can’t be here at 4 but wanted to add how much I am enjoying your diary. I’ve also kept a journal for the past decade. I like very plain brown notebooks, nothing aesthetic to distract or shape my thoughts, rather like Bourges who only ate white bread and plain food when he was writing so his senses could focus on the page. Do you also write by hand Toby? I find hand-writing very different as a process to using a keyboard particularly in terms of editing.
Dear Susanna,
glad to have you along, in both the future and the past. I’m delighted to hear you’re enjoying the entries.
Are those the Muji brown notebooks? I’ve used them for a few things. I wrote How to Tell a Story to Save the World (which went up on the Writers Rebel website) in a pair of those.
For a long time, I thought a journal would be better than a diary for me. That was for the obvious reasons: uneventful days need not be included (and wouldn’t waste paper); eventful days could go on for much longer than a single page. However, I’ve stuck with physical, handwritten diaries. The very first one came from South Africa, and has pictures of wildebeest and lions in. The next few years came from WH Smiths in Bedford. These were various colours. Finally, I switched to Moleskine page-a-day diaries, which I’ve used for quite a few years. They now make up a fairly solid horizontal black line on two shelves.
And, yes, I write almost everything by hand. There are some entries coming up about pens (as well as pencils, pencil-sharpeners, desk-dust). Looking back through my diaries, it’s possible to see the change in handwriting being just as significant as what’s being said. For years, my handwriting sloped forwards. Now it’s very upright. I know that graphology says, when it’s simplistically applied, that forward-sloping is optimistic. So when I’m feeling I need to accentuate the positive, I start to force my handwriting to lean into the future. But when I lose concentration, it goes back to standing up straight. I am still trying to work out what this means.
I didn’t know about Borges diet. Maybe I should try that. The most I do is not eat at all – write hungry – which is what Hemingway advises is A Moveable Feast. Mostly it’s unwillingness to leave the desk and do something that might involve washing up.
Best,
Toby
Kayleigh
I echo that your diary has been an enjoyable slice of my day. Thank you! It’s given me food for thought on a number of occasions.
On the question of journal-keeping, I’ve kept a journal on and off since I was a teenager, when I typed up my deepest darkest thoughts on the deepest darkest web (LiveJournal). Ever since then, writing things by hand has felt too slow for me. My thoughts happen too fast for my writing hand to capture, but my fingertips are pretty fleet on the laptop keypad. I’ve consistently kept a journal on my personal DropBox for the past six months, which is more regular than I have done for years. Because it’s no longer intended to be read by anyone but me, I can be freer about what I write, and also less ruthless about editing out the minutiae of daily life that absolutely no one but me would be interested in. I had originally intended my journal, back in September, to say a lot more about cultural stuff, like books I was reading, or movies and TV programmes. I do write about that too, and even, sometimes, about your diary. But I actually spend more time philosophising about why I do things a certain way and talking about my feelings. In other words, my journal has become a form of therapy. It’s the time in my day when I get to block out the crowd of responsibilities that usually weighs me down and actually think about the things I want to think about. The only other time comparable to this is during Pilates, when I’m in too much pain to think about anything at all. That Pilates teacher is a killer!
Dear Kayleigh,
that’s really interesting. I have thought about keeping a typed journal, of just the sort you’re describing. My typing is faster than my handwriting (though a lot less accurate), and I’d be interested to see what came out if I allowed myself to rush a bit more.
The one time I did write a whole novel on a laptop, it was because the main character was keeping a journal on a laptop. That was Finding Myself. Part of the plot was the people being written about finding what Victorian About (the narrator and journal-keeper) was saying about them. I bought myself a cool laptop and imagined myself writing outside cafes. However, when it came to it, I was terrified someone would cycle past and swipe the work-in-progress, so the laptop only rarely left the house. There’s one scene in the novel I remember liking. Victoria takes her laptop out to the beach and sits there, typing in the dark. She’s braver than I am with her tech. I’d never to that. I’d be thinking about sand getting into the ports.
All best,
Toby
Kayleigh
You definitely don’t want sand in your ports! I like that Victoria was living your ideal imagined situation. It’s almost like a compensation for the shittiness of life.
Dear Grab-baggers,
that’s all for this week. Thanks for the great questions and comments about diaries. Midway through answering I had to run for a train.
See you next last Friday of the month.
I’ll leave this up for a few days before archiving on my other blog.
There will be very exciting news soon about book publication of A Writer’s Diary. It is happening.
And next month, I will say a bit more about the mentoring I’ll be offering for one paid subscriber.
All best,
Toby
Chris
Apologies for not being able to join you on Friday. I’m uneasy with the label, ‘Diary’, the implicated commitment and the risk of unconsciously sliding unspeakable words onto the reality page, a thought stain. Fiction seems safer, less inhibitive, a safeguard. So while I began following your entries out of honest respect, rather than to inform my stalking habits, I’m enjoying that glimpse of inner thoughts, a real writer, unfiltered without being too unhinged. It’s touching. Feels real. Perhaps a thought balancer midst a storm of to-be-dones? And, I suppose, I’m looking at my notebook, my habitat when the words come, unblinkered. And I’m thinking, Fuck it! Jump! (Between naps, obviously.) Thank you. Look forward to more posts.
All best,
Chris
If you’d like to subscribe to A Writer’s Diary, it’s still – for the moment – free forever. Here.
February 6, 2022
A Writer’s Diary – Gabriela Blandy Interview
A couple of days ago, I spoke to the writer and performance coach Gabriela Blandy – who has loads of useful and encouraging tips and videos for writers – about A Writer’s Diary.
She asked me about money, Substack, free writing and the future.
Here it very much is:
February 5, 2022
A Writer’s Diary – catch-up for the curious
If you’d like to quickly get up to speed with A Writer’s Diary – it’s very easy to do. Just read these three days:
Samstag 1 Januar
Entered the year in Leigh’s arms, as it should be. Mum, exhausted, had gone to bed around half past eight. Dad stayed up until midnight. Big Ben on the TV. Brother texted.
‘Who knows what this New Year will bring?’ Dad said, five minutes after the chimes – and then started sobbing. He was sitting on the blue sofa. ‘Happy things, perhaps,’ he added. We gave him another hug. He went to bed soon after. We didn’t stay up much longer.
Late up. Quiet day. Muggy warm. Went for a walk, or tried to. Mum turned back halfway to the War Memorial.
No writing.
Sonntag 9 Januar
10:09. Leigh did a pregnancy test, which was positive! (She bought it at the Streatham chemist as soon as they opened.) Clearblue: a small cross in a clear plastic circle.
Neither of us quite able to believe it – although I had thought Leigh might soon be pregnant, again. Her period is days late. So, she was pregnant when we went for that sad walk in the park; also at New Year, at my parents’.
We have been a little subdued in our reaction. I feel very happy but also terrified. Leigh wanted to do another test immediately; I said the cross was very clear. More hugs. We’ve decided not to tell anyone for three months – assuming all goes well.
11:01. I am nervous every time Leigh goes out of the room; she, whenever she goes to the loo. She has immediately started taking aspirin, and will try to make an appointment at St Mary’s for Tuesday.
Samstag 15 Januar
How about a desk diary? What if I keep this really close? It’s going that way anyway. A diary of the desk. In this place, a coffee spill is a major event. If we moved house, I would take a photo – many photos – and put the objects back where they were, here, at a new location, in a different workroom. (That’s unlikely to happen for years; we can’t afford it.) Why a photo? It’s not like I don’t know where they go: the rhinoceros, the Mercedes; the pen pot (white ceramic F H FAULDING & CO LTD GOLDEN EYE OINTMENT), the pencil pot (shining stainless steel). Overall, the Anglepoise. Uncle Anglepoise, PAT IN UK AND ABROAD. Never thought of it as Uncle before. I will stop, because these things are of no interest to anyone but me.) (I will continue, because what is this diary for if not things of no interest to anyone but me?) I went through a period of acquiring metal objects – along with the lamp, the brushed metal filing cabinet over my right shoulder, the metal mug in which I have my coffee. My good-as-I-can-make-it coffee – which I sometimes spill. If my desk-objects weren’t metal, then they were black plastic. But it’s wooden things I want around me most of all. Woodface was probably the first. The Green Man – French. I was fourteen- or fifteen-years-old, and with my father in a Brocante in the Dordogne. I remember hundreds of chairs piled up to a ceiling as high as the rafters in a village church. Dad was doing a deal; the antiquer gave me the carved-leafy face for free. A gift – originally from a dresser or a seat-stall in a chapel. They have a name, ornaments that surmount pillars within antique furniture – my father would know it, unless he’s forgotten it. I could phone him to find out, but I don’t want to hear his voice as he speaks about Mum. Not right now. Of course, she might still answer – as she won’t in future. (I will phone when I’m finished.) The Green Man has been with me for over thirty years, and is important, colossal, always calling me back to him. He’s made of dense chocolatey wood. I would like a desk made of the same wood, not too heavy, but with lots of drawers.
And that’s it. You’re now completely ready to start reading the Diary from whichever day it’s reached.
February 4, 2022
A Writer’s Diary – Januar Q&A
This very enjoyable Q&A took place on the last Friday of Januar. I’m archiving it here, but it’s also a pretty good FAQ for those new to A Writer’s Diary.
I’m going to be hosting similar discussion threads every last Friday of the month.
Hello Grab-baggers,
thank you for reading A Writer’s Diary. Thank you for subscribing and for spreading the word. I hope it is becoming part of your day (usually your teatime).
A friend who is following along just told me, ‘It’s like you, only more so.’
That’s it – exactly.
It’s my life, only more so.
As it’s the last Friday of the first month, I’d like to open things up for a Discussion Thread. (I have no idea how busy or quiet this might be.)
I’m going to be here, live, for an hour – around 4pm UK time. This Grab-bag thread, and the next few, are going to be for everyone. But at a certain point, like the Inserted Pages, they’ll become just for paid subscribers.
There will be no spoilers here – as far as I can avoid it. I don’t want to let anyone know what’s going to happen or not happen later in the year. (It is written; it will be rewritten.)
Once we’ve finished chatting, I’ll be archiving the discussion on my blog (tobylitt.com), and deleting it here – so that the Diary can be continue to be read uninterrupted.
You can ask a question now, if you feel like it, by making a comment. Otherwise, I hope to hear from you another time.
All best wishes,
Toby
Grace
Hello Toby. I was sitting behind you and Leigh on the number 68 bus a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t want to interrupt what looked like a nice evening out (I’m not stalking you, promise). I noticed as I got off the bus in Camberwell that you were writing in a little notebook. What’s your favourite type of pen? Mine is the black Papermate Flair.
Toby
Dear Grace, thanks for the question. Good to hear from you. Now I remember, I did see you crossing the road, looking very stylish. That evening we were heading for the BFI Southbank (National Film Theatre as was) to see Memoria, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and starring Tilda Swinton – which was just my kind of film. The notebook you mention is, I think, an embarrassingly bright yellow. I tend to buy them from ebay, and often the yucky shades are a good deal cheaper than the Bible black. As for pens – I try to use fountain pens with refillable cartridges, to avoid plastic waste. My current favourite does get a mention later in the Diary. It is a grey Pilot Kakuno with a blue cap. I bought one in Tokyo, lost it, had to replace it. But there are many pens on the desk, and I will return to this subject another time. Love, Toby
David
Expect you know that Pilot was Beckett’s preferred brand
Toby
No, didn’t know that at all. Any particular model? The one I use is marketed as a beginner’s pen – sort of a ‘If you’ve ever considered handwriting, why not try…?’ But it’s nicely chunk and mostly starts first time. The Pilot Metropolitan, by contrast, is a reticent little so-and-so that I am now reluctant even to pick up.
Ian
Hi Toby, Do your own writing preferences try to influence your teaching?
Toby
Dear Ian, thank you for asking one of the biggest questions there is. At least, one of the ones I ask myself most often. But I do it another way. I ask myself ‘Should I let my own writing influence my teaching at all?’ Because my attitude to anyone I’m teaching, whether at Birkbeck College, or on an Arvon course, or as a mentor for The Word Factory, is that I should try to understand what they want to do (as well as I’m able) and then help them write it (as well as they’re able). I am very aware that a lot of the things I love to read are a bit off the main road – or are, to be truthful, a desire line across a minefield. So, I will mention my reading, if I’m asked, but I’ll generally only recommend something to a student if I think they’ll a. enjoy it and b. get something very specific from it. The worst thing is a casual mention in a workshop that sends someone off to read a book that’s nowhere near their genre or taste. However, there’s another question. (You can ask, if you like.) That question is, ‘How do the writing preferences of students or mentees influence my writing?’ All best, Toby
Kayleigh
I’ve been following with interest recent discussions about what it is ok to write about real people in one’s own writing (see, for instance, the furore over Kristen Roupenian’s ‘Cat Person’ which turned out might not be based on her own personal experience but someone else’s who she didn’t credit – but I was more interested in who gets to ‘own’ a personal story or an artwork made my ‘me’ but about ‘them’). Writing about other people can sometimes reveal intimate knowledge of that person’s life. But if that knowledge becomes part of your own lived experience, if it speaks to you, is it always right that you should be able to write about it?
Toby
Dear Kayleigh, you get right to it, don’t you? This is a very acute question. I have very rarely taken someone else’s specific experience – in other words, heard someone else tell a story from their own life, then used it in my own work. (Although, in my *actual* diary this is one of the main things I do: record what I’ve been told as well as I can remember.) On one occasion, a student submitted a story to a workshop (this is years ago), and I really wanted to write it as a film script or a comic. They said they weren’t planning on doing anything more with the idea. I decided not to. But if I had done something based on their idea, I would have contacted them and asked them. I think where it gets really tricky is shared experience. Writers narrate break-ups – sometimes you can read both sides. Writers observe and record and remix their families, and their families are often not best pleased. So, to answer your question, I don’t think it’s ‘always right’ to write about anything. Every sentence is a separate case. But there’s much more to say on this. All best, Toby
Kayleigh
Your answer is incredibly diplomatic. There have also been plenty of times I wished I could take someone else’s idea and adopt it as my own. When I was at school I started writing a story with a friend and when she found out I’d written the rest of the story without her, using her ideas, she was understandably furious. And that was never even intended to be put out in the public domain. As you may have guessed, I have selfish motives for asking such a question! I’ve been thinking about writing something semi-autobiographical for a while, but it would involve a potentially hurtful analysis of someone else’s life and motives as well as my own. Perhaps it’s a moot point because I’m not sure I would ever publish it or share it with anyone. It would probably be best for me to keep this particular writing project as a cathartic or possibly therapeutic experience. Still, I’m a ‘just in case’ kind of person, so I can’t pretend that if the option to publish ever came along I wouldn’t take it. Or pounce on it, more like. Thanks for opening this discussion thread! I’ve been enjoying your daily meanderings very much and will continue to follow with interest.
Katy
Hi Toby, Are you writing the entries to A Writer’s Diary fresh every day, or are (as your email seems to imply) pre-written, and you’re editing and rewriting daily? Or doing a week’s worth in a day then doling out daily? If pre-written, was that over the course of a year, or longer, or a shorter time?
Just curious as to whether and how daily writing works for you. I find it very hard to maintain!
Toby
Dear Katy, good to hear from you. Thank you for following the Diary. This is the question I wish I could both answer for anyone subscribing but also avoid answering completely. I’d like readers, if they want to, to take the Diary as a day-by-day involvement in someone’s life. But I don’t want them to feel conned or deceived, so I’m being open about the fact that – yes – there are Diary entries written for every day between now and December 31st. A very few other people have read what exists of the Diary, or have heard me read out a later entry. But I am rewriting every day as it comes along, and I’m also thinking ahead – considering some bigger changes. So, yes, you’ve got that absolutely right. The first entries were written around four years ago; the bulk of the writing was done in 2021. Although it isn’t ‘a lockdown novel’, no more than it’s a zen novel, it emerged through the time we were all locked down, and there’s zen in there, too. All best, Toby p.s. Maybe you have a follow-up question.
Vana
Hi Toby, Thanks for the diary. Is it Fiction? Autofiction? Autobiography? Do these categorisations matter – to you? to publishers? to readers? Why, or why not?
Toby
Dear Vana, and thank you. I hope that some of the later entries will give something of an answer to this question. If I was forced to choose from a drop-down menu, with only the options you’ve given, I’d take ‘Autofiction’. But Autofiction is usually a short story or a book, delivered all at one go, without the timescale of a year, and without Discussion Threads or tweets. The Substack form of A Writer’s Diary is very much part of it. And that includes the fact that I’ve been going back and tweaking entries even after they’ve gone out. So, the hope of any writer is that they’re doing something new. Or new-ish. I didn’t know it before, but I’ve now learned about Mario Levrero’s The Luminous Novel – which I’ve started reading. Maybe A Writer’s Diary has other forbears I still don’t know about. But what I hope is that – taken as a whole thing – it’s a form that can do just about anything. (To begin listing would be to begin spoilering.) I know that’s a huge claim, but maybe we could look back to this exchange in December? All best, Toby
Vana
So that sounds like you do not intend to publish A Writer’s Diary as a “book”? Are you done with “books”?
Toby
No, I’m not. Not yet.
David
Hi Toby. Your Writer’s Diary already has a place in my daily life that would otherwise be occupied by Wordle, so thanks for that. As you’re currently doing your tax returns should we expect a temporary lapse in content?
Toby
Dear David, yes, I am trying to compete directly with Wordle. Sadly, my retweets are far less succulent. (Yours are very welcome.) And, yes, I have just in actual real life been completing my tax return – for this is the day. The lapse is temporary. Tomorrow we will be back to full entries again. (It’s almost like I can see the future.) All best, Toby
Chris
Thank you for the opportunity to observe. And think.
I’m not a diarist but I’ve been keeping pace with your entries and find your honesty reassuring, humbling even. A couple of entries are a masterclass in the unspoken.
I’m wondering if perhaps, on darker days, you consciously shift your diary focus to preserve mindset for other tasks. Will be watching.
Look forward to seeing the accused, Mouse. He can’t be a claw-meister with a name like that.
Toby
I’ll answer this question next time.
Toby
Dear Grab-baggers, thank you for taking part. I’m really delighted I wasn’t here all by myself. And thank you for the thought-provoking questions. I will be back, last Friday of February, to answer some more questions. Next time, there will be a theme. As for now, I’ll be moving this thread over to tobylitt.com in a couple of days. If you want to contact me before then, I’m easily findable on twitter and elsewhere. You really are a very friendly bunch of desk-ghosts. All best, Toby
January 9, 2022
A Writer’s Diary – The First Nine Days
If you haven’t read any of A Writer’s Diary so far, now is the perfect time to catch up. Below are the first nine days.
Please sign up to follow on Substack. If you do that now, it’s free forever.
Samstag 1 Januar
Entered the year in Leigh’s arms, as it should be. Mum, exhausted, had gone to bed around half past eight. Dad stayed up until midnight. Big Ben on the TV. Brother texted.
‘Who knows what this New Year will bring?’ Dad said, five minutes after the chimes – and then started sobbing. He was sitting on the blue sofa. ‘Happy things, perhaps,’ he added. We gave him another hug. He went to bed soon after. We didn’t stay up much longer.
Late up. Quiet day. Muggy warm. Went for a walk, or tried to. Mum turned back halfway to the War Memorial.
No writing.
Sonntag 2 Januar
Drove home. Unpacked. Sitting at my desk, writing in my diary. When Leigh went to that conference in Munich, on logical languages (Esperanto, Simplified English), she bought this diary, this Tagebuch. She said when she saw it, she was thinking of it as one of my Christmas presents. But then she remembered Mum always buys me a diary, so she better have it for herself (although Leigh doesn’t usually keep a diary – apart from her academic one). On Christmas Day, Mum said she had been intending to get me the usual diary – to order it online – but that she’d forgotten. She was embarrassed but also, I could tell, exhausted. All this keeping up with the usual rituals is becoming difficult for her. I tried to make as little of it as possible, although her forgetting upset me – not because she’d forgotten my present, but because if she were her healthy self, she’d never forget something like that. I realized the chemotherapy was making her iller than she’d let on. Of course, I said it was fine, I could easily get the diary myself; and then Leigh mentioned she had this spare one which she wasn’t going to use. ‘I’ll give it to him when we get home,’ she said, ‘as if it’s from you.’ Mum wanted to give her some money for it, Leigh tried to refuse, but Mum insisted – so this Tagebuch is from both of them. I don’t know if I’ll get used to the days of the week, although I love Mittwoch for Wednesday. Midweek. It’s very practical, like Mandarin days of the week (Oneday, Twoday…) but makes me wonder where they put Woden. Was he too Norse for them? A couple of the summer months are lazily shared – August, September (but November, too) – and for some, English just finesses a letter: Dezember, Oktober. März is heavy-metal-umlaut month. Januar and Februar save energy, just like Mum, by forgetting the y’s. Mai is kin to Czech Maj. But Juni and Juli are like skipping rhymes. Oh, April’s lazy, too. English months came from Northern Europe, didn’t they? We started to export our language and time later. The paper of the Tagebuch is good for writing; the edges of the letters don’t go spidery, and the ink is sucked in without me having to leave the page open for five minutes. As usual, I feel the thickness of pages, between me and the desktop, and wonder what will happen to be written on them. I don’t think Mum will buy me another diary.
Montag 3 Januar
So far, slack-writing. I’m in a lull; when I was younger, I went through periods – of of of writer-crazes, of under-the-influence. I suppose it has to be (disappointingly for all concerned) that I’m more myself and so less swayable. But I still attempt to seek out books that will change me, and occasionally one once again does. (Clarice Lispector, Agùa Viva.)
I go back into the forest and am lost between thickly growing trunks.
What concerns me is that more stable writing lacks something because it lacks periodicity. Blue. Rose. Early. Middle. But sometimes there has to be, and so we have to endure, a season of walking in ice (Schubert, D.960) – Nature must come to seem not like nature at all, just like an element in one of its states; and then it needs to prove (Spring, torrential or not) that it can’t be killed by a sub-zero lull.
But the forest isn’t always available. Too often I stay in the glib city; it’s only when there are free animals around that there’s potential for metamorphosis. Pigeons and rats, green parrots and foxes – they won’t do; they’ve already changed into human-adjuncts, metropolites.
No, that’s wrong. I’m just bored of seeing them in Brockwell Park. A person only feels vivid when they feel hunted. Am I – are you? – capable of feeling prey? Who or what would eat me?
I see death as a perfectly circular lake, dark silver, almost perfectly smooth – because ripples of light sometimes travel back and forth across it (perhaps only to prove to me they are within my eyes, and are merely hopeful, because death is unreflective). Situated high up in the mountains, this lake is expensive to visit but far from exclusive. Entering the waters there is the most stylish thing most people do. They are being escorted into the back of a black Bentley – and driven on soft springs to the semi-circular beach of their oblivion.
Dienstag 4 Januar
Warm, showery day. Walk in the park with Leigh; very aware of pregnant women, of couples with babies in buggies. Held her hand. Green parrots unhappy with the wind.
My image for life is flour on a fork – plain white flour. Although I can’t see the particles, I know they are there. They have more friction than chalk powder, and seem happy to ascend into toppleable towers. Spooning flour into a bowl brings a sequence of unrepeatable icebergs. I’m sorry to lose each one. Bread follows. (But, if it’s bright white, this is processed flour.)
Mouse was fine while we were away, Polly says, round for coffee. She went in to see him twice. Like Christmas. Only one night with our bed all to himself. He’s grown a little, still growing. He lies on the carpet behind me like tabby roadkill. Legs all over – at least seven of them. Not a normal kitten, this one. Hardly a kitten any more.
Looked back at last month in here. What I wrote on December 17th about finishing the last book is wrong – just entirely wrong. I will try again when I can be bothered.
Mittwoch 5 Januar
Quiet.
I can be bothered. Ends of years feel like conclusions but beginnings feel like continuations. December devolves to January, and I’m in the same shit, writing the same thing. Project remains Project. Ends of books are staggered: first reader, other readers, agent, publishers or publisher, editor, redraft, final edit, flat proofs, bound proofs, final panicked changes, author’s copies, oh look a typo on page 3. When I finished scribbling the last paragraph of my last book, first time through, I stood up and took a curtain call. I haven’t confessed that to anyone, not even in here. I bowed left, right, front. That’s the only time I’ve ever done something so public, in my room, on my own. But I knew that someone someday would applaud what I’d done – I felt the tickle-touch of future eyes – there were admirers, a thousand, ten thousand – I could almost hear them cheering – but the standing ovation, the love, was interrupted by rumours of a bomb, and then by a bomb – people fled the smoky theatre – Messerschmidts and Spitfires, coming out of the sun, strafed the screaming crowds – I sat down again, and was pleased at the beginnings of shame at my vanity. Such vanity. This took place one day in the middle of March or June, not on 31st December. Yet it was my own personal midnight of the year. I may have told Leigh that evening (about finishing the book), I suspect I didn’t. It was an entirely private Hogmanay. Usually, I’ll write a little in here, and I always try to remember to date final pages. Maybe someone who was in the auditorium will be enthused enough to take an interest, after they recover from their pride-induced burns – although that particular theatre will have to be rebuilt from ashy ruins. These are the foundations.
In Juni or März – privately – at the desk – ashamed – scribbling – I will try to rebuild from ashy ruins. I think it will be harder this time, because I dared to take that curtain call. Because of that, I am a worse person, a worse writer.
Donnerstag 6 Januar
Cocooning. Marbled endpapers enclose me – I am intended to be read on a table of oak, by sunlight falling through ash trees. From a room two rooms away, someone I love plays Schubert – the accompaniment, but no-one is singing. When it is dark, owls will report on one another like agents for the Stasi. Herons find the lake, as their great-grandmothers did. No newts in the rain barrel. (I was in parts of this past – I travelled blithely through 1978, as if it were 1938.) Put your ear closer to the collapse: I can hear the ants in the compost. A spider isn’t even patient as it repairs its web. The house martins in the eaves of the Cheshire Home have something to do with me. (Without shadows, no poetry; without mulch, no trees.) Although the ink is black, it features as torch beam. Human beings are mostly wrong. Crumbs of gathered pollen fall on me from the ivy, and I emerge boyish and cobwebbed. (A spider isn’t even an emblem of concern for death as it restrings its web.) There’s a reek of fox close to the lake wall. If you were patient enough, you’d see something beneath the surface. You wait. No word but susurrus for the reedbed whisperings. He knew something about him – germane to him – was being passed, stem to stem, in the twilight, on the Sunday evening.
Freitag 7 Januar
Wrote some novel.
Also, did some preparation for teaching. Emailing all the students in this term’s workshop. Making sure they know which room we’re in, etc. Already anxious about what they’ll expect.
Then wrote a bit more novel.
Samstag 8 Januar
Lifelessness.
Sonntag 9 Januar
10:09. Leigh did a pregnancy test, which was positive! (She bought it at the Streatham chemist as soon as they opened.) Clearblue: a small cross in a clear plastic circle.
Neither of us quite able to believe it – although I had thought Leigh might soon be pregnant, again. Her period is days late. So, she was pregnant when we went for that sad walk in the park; also at New Year, at my parents’.
We have been a little subdued in our reaction. I feel very happy but also terrified. Leigh wanted to do another test immediately; I said the cross was very clear. More hugs. We’ve decided not to tell anyone for three months – assuming all goes well.
11:01. I am nervous every time Leigh goes out of the room; she, whenever she goes to the loo. She has immediately started taking aspirin, and will try to make an appointment at St Mary’s for Tuesday.
January 6, 2022
What I’ve Learned from Writing Digital Fiction
The first writing I did for the internet was a serialized novel. The title was Ω.
Ω went out on the Guardian’s first, short-lived website, Shift Control, in 1996.
I had a collaborator, Bronwen Davies, who supplied hyperlinked footnotes (often more coherent and entertaining than the text).
The story was a science fiction caper set in NuCal, a futuristic California. (God, how I’d have hated it to be called a ‘caper’ back then.) It was influenced by Mark Leyner, Jeff Noon, Douglas Coupland and what I’d found washed up on the weirder shores of online. Imagine a Day-Glo mess fighting another Day-Glo mess.
The main thing I wanted to do, in terms of moving from paper pages to the screen, was keep the reader reading. This meant I needed to include something like a cliffhanger at the end of every 250 words. (I didn’t want mini-sections to be bigger than the screen itself. No scrolling necessary.)
This gave the whole novel an air of panic. So what I learned was, Adapt but don’t adapt too much.
In 1998, I worked with Pulp Books and three other writers – Darren Francis, James Flint, Penny J Cotton – on BabyLondon.
Here’s the blurb:
BabyLondon is a text-based hyperfiction website written by 4 young London-based authors, with London’s multiplicity as its theme… Britain’s first major hyperfiction site featuring crosslinked narratives, BabyLondon is not technically publishable in book form, as each path through the site is potentially unique with no two readers getting the text in the same order.
The idea of all this, from my side of things, was to steal readers. I wanted see if I could lure readers away from other narratives by putting hypertext links on the most enticing words they contained.
One section of this ended up being published separately as ‘Alphabed’ in Exhibitionism. It’s about a disintegrating couple having the worst imaginable sex. There are 26 sections, to be read randomly.
What I learned: Hypertext is not the future.
By 1999, I decided it was time to start my own website – tobylitt.com – which I’ve been running, in one form or another, ever since. Its first slogan was ‘Thought-heavy, flash-light.’ This later became: ‘“a funny little website” – mysteriously popular on Wednesdays between 11 and 11.30am’. My favourite section was the Askings, in which I requested obscure information. (Those who know my Facebook posts will be familiar with this.)
What I learned: If you ask people interesting enough questions, someone out there will give you the answer.
The most widely-read thing I’ve done online, so far, is We Tell Stories. It was another collaboration, but this time with high-level technical support from games developer Six to Start. This ambitious project ended up winning Best in Show at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Web Awards 2009 in Austin, Texas.
My bit was two blogs and a Twitter feed. I expected the blogs to work best, because they contained The Whole Story, but it was Twitter that took off. (I subsequently did a standalone story on Twitter, setting up an account and tweeting in real time. This is the story ‘Veronika & Roger-Roger’ in Life-Like.)
What I learned: If you’re going to collaborate, do it with people who are better than you are.
The next experiment took me one step closer to A Writer’s Diary. I serialised an unpublished novel, Lilian’s Spell Book, on Wattpad. The response from readers was wonderful. For several months it hung around the top of the Paranormal Fiction chart. It ended up with over 750,000 reads. A novel which had seemed dead-to-the-world was revived.
What I learned: Readers can save a book’s life – and a writer’s, too.
Since then, I’ve serialised a couple more books online. First was Writing and Shit, which went out weekly on my blog. A creative writing manual that started with failed work, abandoned stories, this tried to give some suggestions about how you could get out of the shit. All of this came from painful experience.
What I learned: If it really hurt, you probably learned something from it.
The other standalone book, released in the last year, was How to Tell a Story to Save the World. In this, five screenwriting manuals and a couple of films are anatomized. What effect does all this supercharged heroism have on the climate? How to Tell a Story was serialized on the Writers Rebel website, which I’ve been editing. A pdf of the whole thing can now be downloaded.
What I learned: The more specific you are, the more useful you’re likely to be.
Which brings us to A Writer’s Diary, where I’ve tried to use everything I’ve learned.
January 5, 2022
A Draft Acknowledgement of Climate
For the past couple of years, I have been part of Writers Rebel – a group within Extinction Rebellion.
One of the things that membership entails, according to our statement of beliefs, is that:
We ensure that all our public appearances and conversations make clear the urgency of radical and rapid change. Even where our work does not address the climate crisis directly, we use our public platforms to spread awareness, and encourage creative and dynamic ways to approach our common, global problem, the climate and ecological emergency.
From the Writers Rebel website
And that’s what I’m doing here, in this post.
As you’ll see over the coming twelve months, A Writer’s Diary does address the climate crisis both directly and indirectly. Even when it doesn’t seem like it’s all that present, it is.
Recently, I have been wondering whether – as part of any public platform involving people committed to that radical and rapid change – there shouldn’t be something for climate equivalent to the Acknowledgement of Country you would hear at the beginning of a literary event or local government meeting in Perth or Noongar Boodjar.
And so I’ve been drafting something that might work, in that context:
We begin by acknowledging the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Although we may speak about other things, that is our subject, that is our ground. We know that the culture into which some of us were born, and within which some of us live, is founded upon and funded by colonial and commercial exploitation of other cultures and their people, animals and wealth. We are the inheritors of stolen lands and the beneficiaries of genocide and ecocide. Given this ground, we pledge to do whatever we can toward justice, repair and revival for the whole earth and for all lifeforms.
I am more than aware that this sounds awkward (‘lifeforms’ – what is this, Star Trek?) and starchy (‘we pledge’). I know that, within the Culture Wars, it’s taking a definite side. To some, it’ll seem like the signalling of modish virtues rather than the recognition of historical facts. But it is, at least, a start towards drafting something that might serve a purpose – to place even seemingly escapist fictions and performances firmly upon the ground of climate emergency.
Note:
I’ve already had some very useful comments on this, particularly on the use of ‘we’ – which I agree is problematic. I’m reposting this in the original form, however.
I’ll be interested to any thoughts you might have on this. Please do leave a comment.
January 4, 2022
The Perfect Reader
[Archived from A Writer’s Diary]
As I’m doing things differently, with A Writer’s Diary, I might as well say –
There is absolutely no need to take this next bit too seriously.However, if you do happen to want to be the Perfect Reader for A Writer’s Diary, these are the seven things you’ll need to have done:
Signed up as a paid subscriber to be ready to get everything, starting on January 1st 2022Shared the sign-up link with at least two friends, or given them a subscription as a Christmas (or other reason) giftRead this lecture on ‘Souls’Read Ghost Story Read Wrestliana Read the entirety of Montaigne’s Essays, Woolf’s Diaries, Wordsworth’s Grasmere Journal, Proust’s A la Recherche, Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet, Kafka’s Diaries, Langley’s Journal, Baker’s The Mezzanine, Tomine’s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, and The Complete Notebooks of Henry James within the last six monthsSat at a desk, writingI don’t think that’s too much to ask. Not of someone as perfect as you.
p.s.
Only number 7 is absolutely essential.