Kate Bohdanowicz

I’m working on my second novel which means I’m in front of a computer a lot, messing around on the internet. I spend a lot of time reading how others write. Ernest Hemingway wrote standing up. My favourite author John Irving starts with the final sentence and writes backwards. I’m sure I read somewhere that James Joyce wrote on flashcards and then jumbled them up, (now Ulysses makes much more sense).

How do I know all this? Because I follow a Twitter account called @advicetowriters. It’s full of tips and quotes from famous scribes, dead and alive, such as ‘write about what you know’ or ‘use your imagination and write about what you don’t know’. Tips include ‘always start with the title’ as well as ‘never start with the title’.

The advice contradicts itself because everyone has different ways of writing. It also says ‘never start a book by describing the weather’ but will then go on to name a number of classics that did just that. Basically, if the writing is good, you can write what you like, how you like, about what you like. The trouble is, most writing isn’t good.

I write 500 words a day (five days out of seven – if I write fewer words for the other two, I don’t beat myself up about it). However, I write EVERY day. Even Christmas Day. I write first thing in the morning otherwise it looms over me like a trip to the dentist and I don't edit as I write.

It took me 13 months to write the first draft of my first book and four months to edit it. Only one person has read it in its entirety and 25 agents have turned it down. This time I’ve upped my daily word count so I should finish the first draft in around seven months. I don’t know where the book is going and I don’t know why I write. It’s just something I do.

Journalist, teacher, author, writer, SEO expert.