How to be a Writer by John Birmingham

If, like me, you sometimes like to drag out the old laptop and hammer out the odd story, or perhaps you have a fully-fledged novel manuscript sitting in your documents folder you haven’t the nerve to show anybody, or maybe you write blogs and little freelance articles and wonder if you could turn your hobby into a full-time writing career - well then, this could be the book for you.

John Birmingham is author of the highly popular He Died with a Felafel in His Hand, and a bunch of fiction and non-fiction, blogs and newspaper articles – a proper jobbing author in fact. So he knows what he’s talking about.

How to Be a Writer won’t tell you how to write: how to construct a story, develop characters, hone your prose, etc. What it focuses on are the practices and habits that help you to be more professional: how to boost your word count, how to pitch a story, get over self-doubt, the business of self-publishing. And a lot more.

Birmingham is an unrelenting task-master: he scolds and howls in your ear, peppering his invective with bad language. Somehow this is very encouraging, because every now and then you need someone to give you a rev up and your friends and family are usually too nice. He is also very funny. I would love to quote some of his wittier moments here on this post but there’s the problem with the bad language and I’m not allowed. So you’ll just have to read the book instead.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: How to Be a Writer