Writers read a lot. Mostly because they love it. Partly to learn how to write better themselves. Partly to size up the competition. Here are some of the writers I've found particularly inspiring.

1. Creative writing books can’t teach you to write but they can improve existing talent. The ones I have found most useful are Stephen King’s On Writing, James N. Frey’s How To Write A Damn Good Novel and my favourite, Jack M Bickham’s The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes. I remember reading through the first draft of The Rise and Fall of A Yummy Mummy and spotting all thirty eight howlers. 

2. I really like reading crisp modern American writers, especially if my own prose is going a bit woolly and creative writing student. They remind me to cut, cut, cut, cut, and make it funny. My all time favourites include Melissa Bank’s, A Girls’ Guide To Hunting and Fishing. Curtis Sittenfeld is wonderful too, and I adored both the poppy Prep and her bigger, more grown up tome, American Wife. Raymond Carver is the god of the cut.

3. Talking of cutting. Poets are the ones with the sharpest scalpel. I love poetry. A good poem is a lesson in less is more - they're always more than the sum of their sharp, small parts too. My favourite poet is the Canadian poet Elizabeth Bishop. And my favourite poem of hers is The Fish. You can find all her stuff in ‘Complete Poems.’ I also love Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters. God, he loved Sylvia didn’t he? And I really loved Don Paterson’s recent collection, Rain, too. I could go on...

4. You can learn a lot from a good screenplay, mostly about crackling dialogue and pacing. Spend an afternoon sifting through the IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/- and then track down the script online. It’s all up there. My all time favourite screenplay is Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally. Nora Ephron? I’ll have what she’s having. Ho ho. Also TV too…don’t just slump back with a glass of wine in front of The Wire or Desperate Housewives or Peep Show, ponder if the dialogue is working and why. (I'm afraid I usually slump back blearily with a glass of wine or two but fully intend not to next time.)

5. Get back to the classics. Again, this is not something I’ve done for a while but fully intend to do when I go on a holiday which involves sun and sun loungers as opposed to adjudicating fights over sand castles in the rain. (I’ve figured this should be some time in 2021.) On my reading list? Bronte. Austen. Wilde. Dickens (yes, even the long ones), George Eliot, Wilkie Collins…

6. The last word goes to the oracle that is my seven year old son. ‘Mum, is a story really just a problem that needs to be solved?’ he asked brightly. Why, yes! Couldn’t put it better myself.