How to write a novel in the mean streets of Hollywood.

I mentioned before how I write a novel; I was going to say how I write novels but I've only really written one. I tried one about thirty years ago but it rambled on so much that it was really only an exercise to learn how to type; that, eventually changed when I started a diary which I kept from 1971 till about 1998 when I first went to New York.

The start of the diary coincided with getting a typewriter; someone gave it to me and I had to write something, I suppose.

It also coincided with the birth of our second daughter and the emotions and anticipations together with the final dramatic rush to the hospital twenty miles away makes it good copy to read thirty eight years later. The other thing interesting in the diary is the small talk – the chit chat; complaining about the cost of petrol and the rising cost of property. I have to say our house cost us two thousand, five hundred pounds and in 1971 the price of our house had doubled and when we eventually sold it we sold it for six thousand pounds.

I wrote in my diary how guilty I felt as a socialist making so much money out of the simple price of a house and looking back on that it looks ridiculous. At another time we bought a house for twenty five thousand pounds and sold it two years later for seventy five thousand pounds. At the time I started my diary that prediction would have looked overoptimistic and looking back on that seems as unbelievable – but I digress.

I usually go to the Los Angeles Festival of Books at UCLA every year and one year I listened to a talk by Walter Mosley; it was a fascinating talk and, apart from being very entertaining, it was very useful and informative for a budding writer.

His philosophy was that you sit down at your desk and write; and you go back to your desk every day for many months and write. And it's no good saying you don't have the time; if you have time to watch television you have the time to write; if you have time to go to a game, go to the coffee shop, go to a bar – anything – you have time to write; or you don't want to.

Then, after many months, you will have a novel, a story and then it is time for the re-write.

When I wrote my first novel this is what I did; I also gave myself a kind of schedule; I wrote at certain times of the day. Usually I would start my day with a climb over Runyon Canyon and as I would be doing this I would think. I loved that think as I climbed over the top and as I went down the other side – a lot faster I can tell you – I couldn't wait to get home and start to write.

Of course the ideas were never as good as the ones that came to me as I sat at the keyboard but they helped with the shape of the whole story. I think it was Joseph Campbell who said that an idea goes onto the page third hand: first of all you get the idea – it comes to you like a man on a magic carpet entering your mind – then you think of the idea and straight away something has happened to it; it has been filtered by your mind, your intellect or whatever and then when you put the idea onto the page – or even tell someone about it – the idea is third hand. I think that's what he meant by it at least that's the way I interpreted it; and I'm sure it was Joseph Campbell and I gave it a great deal of thought after I listened to one of his lectures.

He was an expert on all myths but was a particular expert on James Joyce; he claimed to have read Ulysses thirty or forty times; I've read it twice and I have listened to the BBC version of it with Stephen Rea playing Stephen Dedalus and Norman Rodway playing Bloom and then a few years ago I saw the film Bloom with Stephen Rea in it again only this time playing Bloom himself.

So back to the writing – other things that influence me when I am writing are things that are going on in my life; within the past couple of months two friends/acquaintances/ work mates had strokes. The work mate worked with my wife and has since, unfortunately, died, and the other guy is a neighbour who seems to be doing okay considering the circumstances.

So a character in my current novel had a stroke; I needed something to happen to a character so another character could take his place running poteen in rural Ireland in the fifties – and it worked out well.

Other things I use are things that have happened to me, or someone I know or knew, over the years which brings me to the point - at long last I hear you saying.

Yesterday I had a long day; I got up at 6.30am so that I could meet the lads at the beach for our Sunday morning breakfast and bike ride. I get up at 6.30 as I always give myself an hour to get showered, check the e-mail (addiction), check the news on NPR and the Internet (addiction) and sometimes it takes more than an hour.

Then in the afternoon I went to an auction to buy some silver so I could sell it next week at a profit – there are lots of things actors do for a crust. The bottom line is the silver went for too much money for me to make a profit; I went as far as $250 but the other guy was going all the way and so I dropped out.

When we came home we put the TV on and dozed off in front of it; I was woken by ABCs At The Movies (glad they got rid of the other two young guys) and it was too late to start cooking as we like to eat at about 7.00 – 7.30 which gives the food plenty of time to digest.

So I decided to go to El Polo Loco for four juicy thighs of chicken; I had some coleslaw left over from the night before so after a few funnies on America's Funniest Videos I went to the El Polo Loco on the corner of Sunset and La Brea.

When I got into the parking lot on Sunset Boulevard the whole place was lit by floodlights with a fire truck taking a lot of room; on Sunset itself was another fire truck and numerous cop cars.

The firemen were using a high pressure hose pipe cleaning the pavement – something funny just happened, by the way: I put the one word side walk in and the spell check changed it to pavement!!!! - anyway I walked towards the gap in the parking lot and a cop, wearing a black cowboy hat stopped me from going through; I told him where I was going and he told me to go around the street way along La Brea.

As I walked down La Brea it was quite obvious to me that something serious had happened; there were blood splats all over the place and I had to avoid them as I walked.

When I reached Sunset it was lit up like a Christmas tree and the street cleaning was continuing. The manager of El Polo Loco was standing just inside the door with a mop and the floor near the door, in there, had just been mopped.

I asked the him what had happened and he said “A guy – shot I think came in then went next door (the Chinese Restaurant??) and passed away in the street.”

Everybody in El Polo Loco was going about their business as usual; I was asked what I wanted and ordered four juicy thighs; I helped myself to salsa and when my number was called I picked up my stuff and went.

When I got outside I was prepared to go back the way I came but all the cops and fire fighters were gone as if nothing had happened. I went to the parking lot the front way and the fire truck was just leaving. Nothing on the news when I got home but I wasn't surprised as there was no sign of them at the location.
There is nowhere in my novel for that experience – maybe the next one!!