Professor Sutherland Among the Ghosts

Coming across a witty article in The Spectator by Professor John Sutherland entitled "Among the Ghosts", reminded me of the last time I heard him speak on the subject on Radio Four's Today programme, when John Humphreys and his production team were obviously hoping the Professor and I would fall out on the subject of whether ghost-writing is a "capital crime" - even the Professor had to admit that it was not that, although I think he said he found it a bit "iffy".

He seems to have been giving the subject a bit more of a ponder since then. He's obviously still not our greatest fan, but he now seems to be giving us little more than an old fashioned and kindly meant professorial cuff around the ear. He seems more saddened by the low motives of those who hire us than he is with us the ghosts.

When we were set to spar with one another by Mr. Humphreys, a reluctant pair of pit-bulls, the Professor did say in a rather despairing tone that in ghosting the motive was "always commercial".

I can't argue that that is not true, I'm just wondering if it is such a terrible thing. Most writers earn virtually no money at all from their books and have to rely on other ways to pay their mortgages, feed their children and put something aside for their old age. So they turn to journalism or they teach or they have some other expertise which they write about, (John Mortimer and the law, for instance, or the many "gurus" and "experts" on everything from medicine to gardening who fill our media).

If you want to be a professional writer of books, but do not want to rely on a university, the BBC or Rupert Murdoch for a pension, then you have to look for ways to be paid for your daily labours. We are scribes in the marketplace, selling our wares to anyone who cares to hire us in just the same way as artists might sell their skills for painting portraits. Undoubtedly the motive we have in selling our skills is commercial. The alternative, I think, would have been to have seen my children starve.

Writing Workshop in Zurich

I have been invited by an interesting organisation called nuancewords.com to do a workshop on writing non-fiction. The event is being held in Zurich on the weekend of October 1 -2 and there will be a fiction workshop going on simultaneously with Amanda Hodgkinson, author of "22 Britannia Road".

I know from my in-box just how many people there are out there who have a strong idea for a book and just need a bit of guidance on how to turn it into a reality. So, if you fancy a weekend in Switzerland why not bring your idea along and we'll see what we can do to help?

To find out more go to www.nuancewords.com/workshop/speakers

Unwarranted attack on the Society of Authors

I have been startled to see an unwarranted attack on the Society of Authors on the Bookseller website by Gregor Dallas, an historian who is standing for election to the Society's Management Committee.

I have also had my name put forward for the Committee, but I would have felt defensive of the Society even if that were not the case, since I have always found them to be unwaveringly supportive of their members.

Mr. Dallas's complaint is that the Society does not stand up to the big publishers and try to influence the books that they choose to publish. The thought of an organisation with such a vested interest actually having the power to influence the books that people get to read is positively Orwellian.

Authors as a breed do tend to live a little outside the bustle of mainstream life and we are not always the best judges of what sort of stories the vast majority of people want to read, hear or watch. It is always good to listen to the paying customers. When Shakespeare sensed that the groundlings were growing restless he was always very quick to adapt whatever work he was presenting to them. The big publishers spend their lives trying to divine the tastes of today's groundlings.

There are an infinite number of ways of bringing books before interested and relevant readers that do not involve the "Big Six" publishers or supermarkets or even W.H. Smith.

Long may the Society of Authors continue its good work in helping its members to survive in the jungle of modern publishing.

Words With Jam

I have been asked to judge a competition for an excellent e-magazine for writers called Words with Jam (as in "words that stick" - get it?)

Readers are being asked to send in the first pages of novels - always the most crucial words in any book since they have to tempt potential readers to keep turning the pages. Details can be found at www.wordswithjam.co.uk/competition. Even if you don't plan to enter the competition the magazine is well worth a look.

Can't wait to see what comes in.

The Next Generation of Freelance Writers

I was invited in to Kingston University the other day by Todd Swift - the Canadian poet - to talk to fifty or so students on the creative writing course. Kingston has a good buzz about it, (I had been there just a few weeks before talking to Alison Baverstock's Publishing MA students).

Todd very kindly cajoles all his students to buy my "Freelance Writer's Handbook" and also encouraged them to line up to have their books signed at the end of the session. Talking to some of them individually got me thinking.

It's been forty years since I was setting out like them, arriving in London straight from school, hoping for pavements of gold and all the rest. Then the freelance writer's world was one of manual typewriters and self-addressed envelopes where now it is all emails and attachments, but in essence it is still a gigantic leap of faith into a life where every morning you wake up not knowing if this is going to be the day your big break finally arrives. No doubt they were hoping that I was going to give them some clue as to what the next forty years of their lives are going to be like, but how different will it be by the time these guys are the ones blathering on to another generation of hopefuls?

The only thing I can promise to those who stick it out is that they are in for some grand adventures.

In Bed with my iPad

Like several million others I received an iPad for Christmas. Although I firmly believe that such appliances are a signpost to the route we will all eventually be travelling, I was very unsure of exactly how this newcomer would fit into my life. I have to tell you, dear reader, it is a relationship of unmitigated bliss.

In our first few weeks together I have dowloaded five books and four of them have brought great joy, (the fifth was a substitute purchase for another on the same subject - Montaigne - which proved to be unavailable for download). With each of the books I have made a spontaneous decision to buy based on a recommendation, a review or simply a whim, and I have been reading the desired texts within minutes of experiencing the initial whims - without any expenditure on petrol, postage or parking fines and with minimal damage to the forests of the world.

The screen literally brings light into my life, making it unnecessary for me to hunt out suitably illuminated corners of the house, (of which there seem to be fewer and fewer as both light bulbs and my eyes seem to grow dimmer), and allow for the turning of pages with the most satisfyingly sensual of caresses. Once we are in bed together we need no other light at all.

The books whose glow I have so far basked in, since you ask, are:

"Room" by Emma Donoghue, which is simply delightful in similar ways to "Stuart a Life Backwards" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".

"One Day" by David Nicholls, purchased in order to try to understand why so many people keep telling me its wonderful.

"Life" by Keith Richards - just because - which yielded the unexpected surprise of finding him (or perhaps his co-writer), quoting from a book which I once wrote with someone who was involved with the Stones during their Riviera exile.

"Just Kids" by Patti Smith, telling of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, which is both fascinating and beautifully written.

I understand that these are all commercially successful projects from authors who currently do not need to worry overly about methods of distribution but I am only a few weeks into this relationship and suspect my purchasing decisions will broaden and deepen in time. I am not entirely sure that I would have got round to actually buying any of these books in paper form, certainly not all of them - and that fact makes me feel extremely optimistic about the future for authors of all sorts.

Losing my Skyping Virginity

Having been persuaded to grasp the skyping nettle by Nikola Danaylov, the awesome brain behind the Singularity Weblog, (http://www.singularityweblog.com/), I have now done my first intercontinental video interview with him, talking at enormous length, (45 minutes - but don't let that put you off), about my biography of James Martin - "The Change Agent - How to Create a Wonderful World".

The results will not only be on Nikola's website but also on YouTube and iTunes.

So, how brilliant is that? A full scale filmed interview in the form of a conversation between me in England and Nikola in Canada, all completed in time to go through to the kitchen for supper. A perfect, early example of "The Singularity" in action.