This feature is a series of questions and answers but with a difference, each month I’ll be publishing the answers from lots of authors to just one question. The questions are mainly book, writing or publishing related but they are meant to be fun!
This month the question is “What’s the one thing you can’t write without?”
Chris Whitaker: Crippling self-doubt.
Elizabeth Haynes: Internet access. I’m always looking things up.
Lilja Sigurðardóttir: Coffee. And a computer is helpful as my handwriting is so terrible I often can´t read it myself. But Coffee I cannot be without.
Phoebe Locke: Coffee.
Hanna Jameson: Predictably, coffee. I pick coffee even over snacks, which I also need. Sometimes I don’t know whether I’m inspired or just high on caffeine and it’s good that I don’t know.
David Jackson: Silence. I need peace and quiet to focus on my writing.
Nick Quantrill: Coffee!
Sarah Ward: I always wear headphones. Sometimes I listen to classical music and sometimes it’s just the white noise I like. But it helps get me in the zone…
Steven Dunne: Tea. A computer.
Barbara Nadel: Tea.
Fergus McNeill: A keyboard. My handwriting is slow and laborious and illegible (seriously, I sometimes have to apologise when I sign books for people!) but my typing is fast enough to keep up with my thoughts.
William Shaw: Nothing whatsover. I make sure I have no fetishes around my writing so I can write anywhere and any time. On the bus. On a plane. In a pub. A keyboard of some kind helps, but it’s not essential.
Rachel Amphlett: Coffee.
Derek Farrell: It used to be background music, but that’s not always necessary – or welcome – these days. Then it became a scented candle, but that’s not so workable when you’re writing on a commuter train. I guess the one thing (or two things) I need are: An idea, and a sense of passion. I need to be outraged, or in love with something, and then I can write.
Mari Hannah: I’ve not found one yet.
Cath Staincliffe: A4 paper – ruled narrow feint and margin, and a black gel pen.
V M Giambanco: Music – mostly soundtracks that vary from book to book.
Simon Booker: Knowing I have a fridge full of food.
Susi Holliday: My imagination
Anna Mazzola: COFFEE. Good coffee. I can write on buses, trains, in cars and other people’s living rooms, but I can’t write without caffeine.
Quentin Bates: I don’t have any particular totems or lucky charms, so a table and laptop combo does nicely. Silence helps.
Mark Edwards: Music playing in the background. I use it to get me In the zone and will play the same couple of albums hundreds of times while writing.
Novel Heights 