The Best of The Thinking Quill – X

Dear Reader Who Writes,

You will recall from our previous acquaintance that I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV author of the One Million Bestseller (one million in Amazon Rankings) epic of science fiction and fantasy excellence, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. One’s chums tell one that they find the old moniker a bit of a mouthful and for some inexplicable reason few seem able to pronounce it without adding a silent smirk in the middle. Hence, one is usually bespoken of by one’s legions of admirers as ‘Ivy’.

However one is proud of one’s unique and outstanding name. I owe it to my darling Mummie having been a flower-child in her youth and Pater being a frightfully successful stockbroker. Tragically, Pater is no longer with us. He is in a better place, as he assures the world frequently in those Facebook pictures of his suntanned self and the skinny tart he took with him to Barbados.

But enough of my history, you are not here to have your heart bleed for my broken home, you are here to learn from my vast stores of wisdom and humility. I will keep you in anticipation no longer.

How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Equipment

A delicate pun-ette never goes amiss, gentle Reader Who Writes and brevity in insignificancies is a virtue I profess frequently, so you shall be acronymed into my RWW from now on in this piece.

The importance of beauty cannot be overemphasised. One is a follower of the maxims of the sainted William Morris and will have nothing in one’s bijou writing cave that one does not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

It takes so little effort my beloved RWW to ensure that one writes only on the most perfect sheets of paper, with the most gloriously coloured inks, using pens made from the flight feathers of the Phoenix of one’s imagination.

Oh, would that were true, would that it were.

Instead, we are driven by the exigencies of life in a century that prizes immediacy above the endeavours of gentlemanly artistry. So I have a convenient technological contrivance to enable me to articulate my erudition across the world. From my fingers to your eyes. Miraculous to realise that these words I am typing in my underground retreat shall soon be read by you dear, dear RWW whether you are in Utah or Uzbekistan, Brisbane or Brighton, La Belle France or Lesotho.

So yes, the equipment you most need as a writer is some form of a computer connected to the interwebs. Be sure to have one set up in your chosen writing area before I next grace you with my presence.

And until then, dearly beloved RWW – bon ecrit!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.