Philip Martin: Hi.

Mike: Can we start off Philip, really just by getting the listeners to understand the amount of writing that you have done and the range of writing, particularly, because you haven't just written for TV; have you?

Philip: No, I've written for all sorts of things. I originally started when I was an actor. I was a professional actor, and I had acted in a police show way back called Z cars, and I knew that format. When I started to get a bit feeling that acting was a step on the way rather than the final destination, I began to write, and I looked around. I had written a long, rambling stage play that didn't get anywhere. But, then I thought that I wanted to write something I wanted to sell. And I thought of this original format, which I knew because I had the scripts and everything. I based it on that.

So, I put an idea into the then script editor and he loved the title, which was called the "Charge of the Thermal Lances," and we met and we talked and...

Mike: I guess, this was about robbing a bank.

Philip: It's when they used to have long pipes, which used to stuff with that...

Mike: There was one in every film, wasn't there?

Philip: Yes, then, I remember talking about the 70s now and if you would run it through, it would burn safes, it would do actually go through...

Mike: Can I ask, because it just occurred to me while you were saying that, that I would imagine that most of the people who are listening to this or reading this transcript wouldn't have had that sort of insight, experience, or knowledge. Was that more useful to you because you knew the format fairly intimately, presumably that's not what gave you the original ideas?

Philip: Well, it does sound as if I was privileged and I took advantage of that, as you have to do. But, the key word is "knew the format," and there are ways of anybody learning a format. You just have to watch the shows. You just have to study the shows. If you like, hospital programs, watch all the hospital programs you can. Get the ones you like and analyze them. Analyze them until you know them backwards and then you are only in the position that I was. I happened to have that knowledge because I happened to experience it, but, anybody can experience something by concentrating on it.

Mike: Yes, and of course that... I don't know, if that has occurred to everybody who wants to write; certainly it hadn't occurred to me. It's a new one on me. But, it makes perfect sense, that if you are interested in crime thrillers, that you watch everything, or read everything you can about crime thriller...

Philip: Particularly read.

Mike: Particularly read, and that sort of one thing I do remember from my early days of thinking that I might be able to write was, people said you should never attempt to write until you have read plenty. I always questioned myself as to whether I had read enough ,and realized that as the years went by, that I've done plenty of reading.

Philip: Well, that's the thing. That's the thing. You have to know when you've done enough.

Mike: So, you were involved in TV. You were in the game, in the business, shall we say, but, presumably that doesn't give you any massive advantage when you have produced an original piece of work other than the fact that, you know, the format because you were involved in it.

Philip: Yes.

Mike: So, your first thing... what was this first thing that failed, or flopped? You say, it was a stage play?

Philip: It was a stage play, yes. Well it started, and when you start writing you tend to put everything in that you know about it. But, what you are really doing is, you're putting down on paper the things you have seen and enjoyed really.

It's like an onion, you are on the outer edge of the onion, the outer skin, and you peel it away and peel it away, because you don't really have a voice. You have many voices. And the many voices are the people and writers you admire, films you have seen and loved; and that's what you have to get out and burn off until gradually your own voice, first of all very faintly, starts to come through and then your own style; but, you have to write the stuff and sometimes you have to write a lot of things, before you actually find that voice or you begin to understand a little of what it's about.

So, yes, the first play was a rambling, and the thing is, the awful, the worst rejection I've ever had, because I had a friend who was a professional writer and he showed it to his agent. She didn't like it. The hurt that I got from that was really worse than anything else I've ever had; and I've had failures at the national theatre and what have you, which wasn't much fun, but... that first thing... And that's what you have to get past, that's part of....

Mike: I know that one of the series of ebooks is being produced around just that subject of 'failure and persistence.'

Philip: Yes, so, you need failure, actually. You must make it your friend.

Mike: Yes, I often say to people who are attempting any venture in life, "probably the worst thing that could happen is that you have instant success, because you haven't learned..." You could have some luck and think it's easy.

[crosstalk]

Philip: And you get that awful thing where writers, you see this quite a lot, people who have had that early success, and OK, sometimes it's a worthy success. But, they reach the point, after two or three more, where they think anything they write is good. They lose the critical faculty. Or if anybody dares to point out that this isn't perhaps as good as the last one, they then go off in the huff and look for somebody else.

And gradually, their work gets weaker and weaker and weaker until they are just forgotten.

Mike: So, just coming back to our theme though. Would it be too glib to ask the question, is there a book inside everyone; and if there is, could it be brought out of them?

Philip: Well, there probably is, but, what you have to do, is you want to have to bring it out. Writers are a peculiar breed and there's something about them. First of all, they have to want to write. They have to want to express.

And the majority of people who extraordinary things have happened to, have no desire to make sense of it. That's what writers are trying to do. They are trying to make sense of their lives, and everybody else's lives. They also like to be God, because you can control that world that you write about. You create it, and you control it, and you are God within that world.

In a way, my answer is that there is probably a book in everybody, but, only a fairly small section of the worlds' population wants to express it. And that's a different ball game.

Mike: Sure. And I would imagine that the people who are listening to this or reading this transcript will be those people who have bothered to research what the possibilities are with their writing. So, what advise you give to those people who are in the very early stages of just perhaps formulating an idea that they perhaps could write a book, and are just at the very early stages.

Philip: Well, first you all, you have to define what sort of book it is. Is it an autobiography? Is it a non-fiction book even? Is it a book or is it a novel? You've got to more or less think what you like. The big key to this is to think what sort of books do I like? I mean, it's ridiculous for somebody who loves crime fiction deciding to write a poetic distillation of their lives.

Mike: So, virtually the clue about it is, what you like reading, what you like watching and what you like that. And if you think about that, you'll probably find that there is a particular genre that you like. And I say go towards that. If it's a serious novel, you like serious novels, you like the classics, you're going in that direction.

If you like murder mysteries, it's probably that things should be channeled in that because the big thing you've got to have is, the spark that keeps you going. And if you are not really interested...

I knew a guy, he is a very talented writer, he was a dramatist really but, he used to write these novels. He said, you know, I come down into the room, and I can hardly muster to switch the life on ,or I sit down and I make myself write four pages every day and I hate it. Goes on, I don't move until I've done these four pages.

I said, Oh, I said what has happened to these novels. Have you sold any? He said, no.

Mike: Of course, yes.

Philip: You have got to have the spark of liking...

Mike: ...write what you are passionate about.

Philip: And if you stat off by saying, well I'm going to sell this screenplay to Hollywood, I'm going to be to have the millionaire's life. You can't do that. These things sometimes happen. And thank God they do.

Mike: The recent famous one, of course, is the Harry Potter series.

Philip: Well, J.K. Rowling, yes.

Mike: She is now talking about bringing out the ninth book in the series.

Philip: Well, she's talking... She's done a family tree of what happens to the children of Harry and the families within that.

But, there again, you see, J.K. Rowling is something else. She wanted to write these books. It's just an incredible fairy story almost, that she has made all these millions from it. She wanted to write that book, and her world was Harry Potter's world. She was quoted, I saw an interview with her the other night, that when she was a secretary and she used to sit at meetings, she finds it extraordinary now that Walt Disney comes over to talk about their theme park. They're all treating her and all being nice. She used to be the least important person in the room. This secretary, who was supposed to be taking minutes, was actually writing Harry Potter stories.

So, what I'm saying is, "The desire has to be there to sustain you throughout."

Mike: As you're speaking there, my brain's starting to think, "If I was someone who aspired to write", and by "aspired to write", I don't just mean "write for the sake of it," I mean "write with some sort of literary success or financial success," which is, I guess, the reason that most people would want to start. Would it be best to start with a 1000 page trilogy, do you think? Or would there be some easier, better way, or more productive way to try and get into it?

Philip: Well, if you like 1000 page trilogies, yes. If you like short stories, yes, although that's a market that's very limited. It's whatever that you want to do. And you have to be prepared that very few people actually make it first time. And even when they do make it, they don't want people to be reading their first stuff.

You've got to get through that. Yes, believe it's going to be published. Yes, believe it's going to do that.

Stephen King wrote various things, and his first, without much success. But, his first breakthrough, he'd actually thrown away. He'd thrown it in a waste paper basket. His wife rescued it and said, "I think, this is all right." He sent it off to a publisher's, and that started the whole thing.

Mike: I am going to talk about your various writing successes, because I know, you've had lots of them, spread across a long period of time and over lots of different genres. But, one of the things I heard you talk about recently was writer's clubs, where people go and criticize each other's writing. And you had some quite strong views on writer's clubs. Could you just light the puff for us, and tell us what are your views on that type of practice?

Philip: Well, it depends on the writer himself. I tend not to like it because I've taken writing seminars, and I've done tutoring for writers. And I always say, "Look, the only person in this room who's going to criticize anybody is me, and I'm not going to criticize you, really, because I know, how difficult it is." I don't think people can really create when there's an air of repression in the room.

I think that too many writers - not all writers groups, there are exceptions - but, too many start to score off, and often it's their own disgruntlement, their lack of progress, that they'll take it out on somebody else.

I've read a lot of things by writers groups, and there's a sort of "sameness" about them. It's like a committee. It can fall into a committee; and committees, to my mind, always strangle ideas and strangle originality.

I think, it's valuable to have outside criticism, But, it's somebody that you have to trust. If you want "tough love" sometimes, there's that particular person who'll give you that. If you want somebody who'll look for the good points, there's somebody else. So, you choose your own mentors. But, I think, a disparate group of people, of writers, and it can be very difficult. So, I say, "Don't ever go to writers groups, but, either select it very carefully, and if you find you're feeling inhibited when you write, leave that group and find somebody else."

Mike: Yeah. I can see how that may strangle someone's desire to write. And I suppose that's one of the key words, isn't it? Write.

If someone is aspiring to be successful, do you write every day? Should they write every day? If so, how much should they write? Or should they write when the mood takes them?

Philip: There is no hard and fast rule. Every writer has a different technique that works for them. J.K. Rowling, as we talked about, used to write in coffee shops, and she still does. When she goes out, she still does. That's her thing, and she can do it. Other people just don't need that. Some people have to write on the train. If the desire is strong enough, you can write anywhere. There are various techniques. There are various ways. Some people write four pages a day. As soon as they finish the four pages, they clear off. Or they can write half a page a day. It doesn't matter, because four pages to a beginner can sound extremely daunting.

Mike: Mm - hmm.

Philip: But, really all writing is - prose writing - is a word; a letter, a word, a sentence, a paragraph. And that repeats until you've got "War and Peace," you know?

Mike: Sure. Sure.