A Slip of the Keyboard Read online

  I’ve checked. My copy is still right next to the dictionary. Now read on.

  I was a Brewer’s boy. I first grasped the spine of my secondhand copy when I was twelve. It’s still in amazing condition, considering the work I’ve made it do.

  It was my introduction to mythology and ancient history and a lot more, too, because Brewer’s is a serendipitous (see page 1063) book. In other words, you might not find what you’re looking for, but you will find three completely unexpected things that are probably more interesting. Reading one item in Brewer’s is like eating one peanut. It’s practically impossible. There are plenty of other useful books. But you start with Brewer’s.

  Nevertheless, the book is hard to describe. You could call it a compendium (I didn’t find this in my ancient edition, but I did find “Complutensian Polyglot,” so the effort was not wasted) of myth, legend, quotation, historical byways, and slang, but that would still miss out quite a lot of it. A better description would be “an education,” in the truest sense. Brewer’s flowered in those pre–Trivial Pursuit days when people believed that if you patiently accumulated a knowledge of small things, a knowledge of big things would automatically evolve, and you would become a better person.

  Brewer’s has been updated for this Millennium edition. It includes Gandalf as well as Attila the Hun (and why shouldn’t it?). Some of the duller nymphs and more obscure Classical items have been dropped to make space for such additions to the language as “hit the ground running” and “all dressed up and nowhere to go.” To be considered obscure by Brewer’s is a real badge of obscurity, and it is sad to see them go; but the serious Brewerite can only hope that Cassell might one day be persuaded to release a “preservative” edition, so that this detritus of myth and legend is not forever lost.

  But today is tomorrow’s past. One day the Fab Four (ask your dad) will be one with … oh, some of the things that no one cares about anymore. Given the speed of change, they’re already well on their way. It’s an education in itself, seeing them take their place with old Roman senators and mythological fauna, and watching the dust settle. We’re the next millennium’s ancients.…

  Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is the first book to turn to when questions arise and the final desperate volume when the lesser reference books have failed. No bookshelf, no WORLD is complete without it. It’s as simple as that.

  PAPERBACK WRITER

  The Guardian, 6 December 2003

  Maybe it’s the influence of the Net, but people talk about writing in terms of “getting.” Where do you get your ideas/your characters/the time? The unspoken words are: show me the coordinates of the Holy Grail.

  And, at best, you throw up a barrage of clichés, which have become clichés because … well, they’re true, and they work. I’ve heard lots of authors talk on the subject and we all, in our various ways, come out with the same half a dozen or so clichés. And you get the sense that this isn’t exactly what’s wanted, but people go on asking, in the hope that one day you’ll forget and pass on the real secret.

  Still, this newspaper paid. That’s one of the tips, by the way.

  When I was thirteen, I went to my first science fiction convention. How long ago was that? So long ago that everyone wore sports jackets, except for Mike Moorcock.

  Most science fiction writers were once fans. There’s a habit they have, not of paying back, but of paying forward; I know of no other branch of literature where the established “names” so keenly encourage wannabe writers to become their competitors.

  I came back from that event determined to be a writer. After all, I’d shaken hands with Arthur C. Clarke, so now it was just a matter of hard work.…

  The first thing I do when I finish writing a book is start a new one. This was a course of action suggested, I believe, by the late Douglas Adams, although regrettably he famously failed to follow his own advice.

  The last few months of a book are taxing. E-mails zip back and forth, the overtones of the English word cacky are explained to the U.S. editor who soberly agrees that poop is no substitute, the author stares at text he’s read so often that he’s lost all grasp of it as a narrative, and rewrites and tinkers and then hits Send—

  —and it’s gone, in these modern times, without even the therapy of printing it out. One minute you’re a writer, next minute you have written. And that’s the time, just at that point when the warm rosy glow of having finished a book is about to give way to the black pit of postnatal despair at having finished a book, that you start again. It also means you have an excuse for not tidying away your reference books, a consideration not to be lightly cast aside in this office, where books are used as bookmarks for other books.

  The next title is not a book yet. It’s a possible intro, a possible name, maybe some sketches that could become scenes, a conversation, some newspaper clippings, a few bookmarks in an old history book, perhaps even ten thousand words typed to try things out. You are not a bum. You are now back in the game. You are working on a book.

  You are also fiddling with your internal radio. Once you’re tuned in on the next book, research comes and kicks your door down. Something is casually mentioned on TV. A book about something else entirely throws out a historical fact that, right at this moment, you really need to know. You sit down to dinner next to an ambassador who is happy to chat about the legal questions that arise when a murder is committed in an embassy and the murderer flees outside, i.e., technically into another country, and the plot gulps down this tidbit.

  People are magnificent research, almost the best there is. An old copper will tell you more about policing than a textbook ever will. An old lady is happy to talk about life as a midwife in the 1930s, a long way from any doctor, while your blood runs cold. A retired postman tells you it’s not just the front end of dogs that can make early-morning deliveries so fraught.…

  Undirected research goes on all the time, of course. There’s no research like the research you’re doing when you think you’re just enjoying yourself. In Hay-on-Wye, under the very noses of other authors, I picked up that not-very-famous work The Cyclopedia of Commercial and Business ANECDOTES; comprising INTERESTING REMINISCENCES AND FACTS, Remarkable Traits and Humours (and so on, for sixty-four words). There are obvious nuggets on almost every page: Preserved Fish was a famous New York financier. Then there is what I might call secondary discovery, as in, for example, the dark delight of the Victorian author, when writing about a famous German family of financiers, in coming up with sentences like “soon there were rich Fuggers throughout Lower Saxony.” And finally there was the building up of some insight into the minds of the people for whom money was not the means to an end, or even the means to more money, but what the sea is for little fishes.

  I’ve learned one or two things over the years. One is that the best time to work out a book is in bed, just after you’ve woken up. I think my brain is on time-share to a better author overnight. A notebook is vital at this point. So is actually being fully awake. If I had been fully awake I probably would have written a fuller note than “MegaPED:” on the back of a card by my bed the other day. It’s probably the key to a plot idea, but don’t ask me, I only wrote it down.

  And if you think you have a book evolving, now is the time to write the flap copy. The blurb, in fact. An author should never be too proud to write their own flap copy. Getting the heart and soul of a book into fewer than a hundred words helps you focus. More than half the skill of writing lies in tricking the book out of your own head.

  ADVICE TO BOOKSELLERS

  July 1999

  This was written not for publication but for the use of the worthy people at Ottakar’s bookshops. They have since disappeared, unfortunately, but the advice is still valid fifteen years on.

  Let’s start with this: on the face of it there is not a lot for the author in a signing tour, and the more popular the author, the less there is. If it’s going well, it’s exhausting; if it’s going badly, it’s exhausting and frustra
ting and a lesson in humility. I’m not certain it sells that many extra books; it simply means that books sold in that town will be sold mostly at this one shop. It doesn’t hugely affect the bestseller list—Bookwatch, for example, “adjusts” returns from shops that have held signings to ensure these don’t distort the national figure, and a very successful author will have to work very hard to influence their position on the list. Meals happen at odd times or not at all. You live out of a suitcase. The world blurs.

  Of course there are pluses, but these tend to be for the shop (if it sells a lot of nice shiny books) and the publisher (who consolidates a relationship with the shop or the chain). What the author gets, mostly, is indigestion.

  We do it sometimes because we’re bullied, we’re vain, we’ve always done it, we have a vague sense that it’s the right thing to do, a few of us just like it in some strange way, and—to borrow from another branch of the entertainment industry—we feel that however much work you do in the recording studio, it’s not rock ’n’ roll until you take it on the road.

  What you should expect from an author

  To be on time, to be polite to staff (you may need to modify this requirement in the case of one or two authors) and friendly towards the customers, and to stay to the end of the advertised time.

  Then immediately you get into the grey area. Should the author sign backlist titles? Write a dedication in every book? Sign all the telephone orders? And orders for other shops in the chain? And, in the case of a successful signing, stay beyond the advertised time to send all the queue away happy?

  My feeling is that the default answer should be yes, but signing tours can be crowded, taxing, and generally designed to be the most unhealthy way of spending a few weeks outside the Lard-Eating Olympics. So those areas have to be matters of gentle discussion with the publicist beforehand.

  What should the author expect from the shop?

  In the last eleven years I’ve spent fifteen months “on the road”; and here are the little notes I’ve collected:

  Before the event

  Are there books? Don’t laugh. Sometimes there aren’t—or, at least, aren’t enough. You still run across the unreconstructed shop who thinks a good order for a signing is about twenty-five extra copies.

  It’s nice if the shop staff knows who the author is and why they are there.

  A guest should get something further up the scale upon arrival than “Wait here and I’ll go and find someone” or, possibly, “Oh, was it today?” Remember: an author, no matter how successful, is under that cool exterior as twitchy as a shaved monkey, and will be pathetically grateful for a friendly smile and (assuming that they’ve been good and arrived well in time for the event) a swift stroll to …

  … a chair in some office, preferably, rather than a stool in the stockroom, where they have …

  … a nice cup of tea and can loosen up a bit. I generally use this time to sign orders and stock, and listen to any scurrilous gossip. Authors will always appreciate hearing how much worse other authors’ signings went. (But if devilment overcomes you and you praise a known rival, you can actually see certain muscles in the author’s face freeze up. This is great fun. But don’t do it.)

  I personally don’t dedicate books ordered by phone except in special circumstances, simply because of pressure of time, but it’s worth finding out from the publicist in advance how an author feels about this. The sensible mantra is “We cannot promise a dedication on preorders because there may not be time,” but I prefer to say no right from the start if we know it’s going to be a crowded tour—it saves raising and dashing hopes. Incidentally, the desire to get books signed for other shops in the chain is a natural one, but don’t force it—most authors will be happy enough to do this if there is time, but don’t get insistent and don’t pretend that all six hundred are really just stock for your own shop. It’s been tried. Play fair.

  If the local paper/radio/cable station contact you for an interview, for heaven’s sake let the publicist know as soon as possible. It’s best to pass the request straight to them. They may be able to arrange the day to fit it in, but that depends on knowing in advance. It makes for a tricky situation if they simply turn up unbeknownst to the author (mumbling something on the lines of “We spoke to someone”) and expect a twenty-minute interview while the queue waits. That’s bad manners.

  It’s a good idea to make sure advertising for the event takes place before the event. I wish I didn’t have to say this.

  The event

  Is there a table and chair? I wish I was joking, too. One shop once forgot these completely, and elsewhere I’ve sat on, at, or around various strange items of bookshop furniture. It should be a real table and a real chair, not a stool in front of a shelf unit with no room for the knees. Try and put together something you would be comfortable sitting and writing at for several hours.

  Give some thought to where the signing table is. I prefer to have my back to something—a wall, shelves, whatever. That means the kid with the blue anorak and one blocked nostril can’t stare over my shoulder for two hours, which is off-putting (there’s always one …).

  Some shops like to put the author near the doors. This is a problem on winter tours—I’ve frozen before now, so try to put the table out of the worst of the icy blast. Shops in malls sometimes get the author to sign out in the mall. This is probably fine for a “media” author or an author who can definitely draw a big queue, but it’s hell on wheels for the rest. Besides, it’s always too noisy and you get a Greek chorus of Uzis—the little old ladies that stand around glaring at the luckless author and muttering “Uzi? Uzi den? Izeeonnatelly? Uzi?”

  Vase of flowers on the table? That’s nice, but someone will knock it over, so take it away when the signing starts.

  A lot of authors travel with their own pens, but it’s a good idea to have a few available, including a marker that will take on a shiny surface. Try to avoid Biros with chewed ends—they lack that certain something. The author may require—or at least haughtily expect—help with opening books at the right page and so on, although in my experience most are quite happy to get on with the event and require nothing more than that staff keep a lookout for the mad axman.

  Give some thought to the queue itself. Try not to make it stand out in the rain. Some bookshops appear to think of queues as a nuisance to be punished rather than a long line of customers, whereas I will definitely go back to the shop which, having been forced to make the queue stand outside their (small) premises on a cold November day, went to the bakery across the road and got a really good deal on 250 hot mince pies. That was style, and probably good business, too.

  Ladies with small yet terminally loud children should be ushered to the front while everyone still has their eardrums. I’ve learned that people in wheelchairs are usually happy (even determined) to wait their turn—as one said to me, “After all, at least I’m sitting down.” It’s worth tactfully policing a long queue, though, for those who will clearly suffer during a long wait.

  If you have got a TV personality promoting something with a title like “The Whoops-Where-Did-That-One-Go? Christmas Fun Book,” don’t pass comment if they spend a lot of time reading their book while they’re in the shop. It may be the first time they’ve seen it. Do not offer to help them with the longer words.

  Hardly anyone turned up? If it’s absolutely no one, then something has gone really wrong, especially if you’ve done a decent promotion. It’s probably not your fault. Don’t leave the author alone but chat to them, keep knives away from them, and tell them stories about how even this is good compared to what happened when Miss X did a signing here.

  Have loads of people turned up? In the wash of relief, most authors will at the very least sign for everyone who was present in the queue by the official end of the signing, and many of us will simply sign until we run out of people or time. There are a few (rumour says) who will leave at the end of their hour no matter what; if they want to give a bad impression to a la
rge number of readers, this is their choice. Be stoical about it, bear in mind that there may be another event that day, and it may have been a very long week already. A good publicist should have budgeted the time correctly, but we’re all prey to unexpected six-mile tailbacks on the motorway.

  Care and feeding of authors

  Since many signings take place over the lunch hour, a snack is appreciated before or after the signing. A sandwich is fine, although the author may well have been living on sarnies for weeks and would be pathetically grateful for a jacket spud or something exotic. Haughty demands for smoked salmon and champagne—well, that’s up to you. I can’t help you there, but you will probably be prosecuted if you hit anyone with a fire extinguisher.

  Authors have their likes and dislikes and these get magnified as shops pass on the information. According to rumour, I demand sushi, Australian Chardonnay, kumquats, chocolate-coated coffee beans, those little blue things in liquorice allsorts, and gin and tonic. No, it’s all a mystery to me, too. Some shops go out of their way to put on a good spread (so’s the staff can fall on it when the author has gone) and this is good PR, but in truth an author tends to eat lightly on tour because their stomach is knotted into a figure eight.

  Stock signings

  These are “signings-lite”; the author and publicist drop in while they’re in town to sign some stock. Do not underestimate them. A bit of friendliness and a sense that this is a welcome occasion will pay off. Treat it like a proper signing, but without people. The author will remember. Trust me on this. I’ve done stock signings at shops that left me feeling guilty that they weren’t given a “proper” event, and insisted that we do them “properly” next time we’re in town.