November came and went in a flurry of moving fingers, but to a very good writing purpose.  Normally I'm very disciplined with deadlines, but this new arrival was a week late.  Yes, I've finally finished writing my latest book, The Road to Writing, which explains my absence from this blog.

It is indeed a bit like the late stages of pregnancy, 'giving birth' to a book.  In one way, you can't wait for it to come, in another way the moment of saying 'that's it, it's done, I'm gonna squeeze it out, I can't make it any better' is painful.  No, not quite as painful as child birth, but to be honest it's not far off in the psychological stakes.

A tip for any prospective writers, and an answer to the question, 'how do you know when you've finished a book?'  My answer would be: when it makes me feel sick to even think of looking at it again.  Probably not exactly what my publishers would want to hear, but the truth in any case.

Just like a baby, a book doesn't come out fully formed and ready to walk and talk.  The production bit of the process takes about 7 months, so expect to make the acquaintance of The Road to Writing in about June of next year.

As both a writer, and a teacher of writing, I've been noticing more and more the disparity between the two.  That is to say, the way teachers are told by the government to teach writing, is often in direct opposition to the way that a good writer actually writes.

Let me give you an example.  My son came home from school with a piece of homework in which he was asked to replace the word 'said' with lots of other words that mean the same thing (replied, shouted, told, answered, you get the picture).  But any would be novelist who reads any of the myriad books on writing knows that the word 'said' is an invisible word.  The novelist uses it because it doesn't interfere with the telling of the story.  A novel with 'replied' and 'shouted' in it would very quickly get chucked on the slush pile.

Similarly all those 'interesting' words that children are encouraged to use in their lessons on writing, adverbs in particular (this was another bit of my son's homework task).  It was not sufficient for someone to have 'shouted', they had to have 'shouted angrily'.  But again, any fiction writer knows that this is in direct contravention of the 'show, don't tell' rule.  It's easy to put 'shouted angrily', much harder to think of a way to convey that without telling the reader.  I guess you could try: 'he said, spitting the words from his mouth as though they had a bitter taste'.

Perhaps it's like art.  To become the literary equivalent of a Picasso, a Van Gogh or a Lowry - someone who bends and breaks the rules, who 'draws like a child' - we must first learn to how to write by the rules.  Or maybe it's to do with the current obsession in the teaching of writing for 'naming the parts' - if children have to be able to identify a substantive clause at 100 paces, I'd jolly well better get them to use it.  "But that's a subject for another blog entry," she whispered mysteriously ...

Friends will often ask me how long it takes to write a book.  Funnily enough, the answer is 'not all that long'.  That is, if you're talking about the physical act of getting the words down on paper.  I can type at about 80 words a minute, and my average book has 50,000 words.  So, I guess the answer is '625 minutes' or, in other words, ten and a bit hours.  But 'writing a book' is of course not just about the physical act, the 'leg tied to the desk' that I've written about before.  There's plenty of planning, research, thinking, editing, involved as well.

As is often the case, a couple of metaphors will come in handy here.  If you think of a book as an iceberg, the bit you actually see - the words on the paper - is the bit poking above the sea.  Underneath are the two thirds that balance the iceberg and keep it afloat.  It might take a year or more for the hidden bit of the iceberg to form, before I can create the bit that floats on top.

Or, to put it another way, I'm a great lover of a cup of tea.  First, warm the pot (heat up an idea in your brain), next boil the kettle (approach your publishers, submit a proposal, get a contract in place), after that put tea leaves and water in the pot (start gathering ideas) and then leave to brew for several minutes (let all your thinking about the book sit and gain form and structure inside your head).  And only when the tea is the perfect colour, pour it into your tea cup (write it) and add the milk (edit).

I'm just at the pouring stage at the moment, writing my latest book.  So, if you'll excuse me, I'd better just pop off and pour myself a brew.

Over the years I've read a fair few books on writing, and I've trawled the internet looking for useful advice.  And probably the most valuable piece of advice I've ever come across is the apparently bizarre suggestion which forms the title of this Blog entry.

Thankfully it is of course a metaphor, and my leg isn't actually tied to the desk as I write.  But what it means is, if you genuinely want to be a writer, then the only way to do it is to sit down and actually do some writing.  Dreaming about it, thinking about how lovely it would be, plotting stories or books out in your head - this is all well and good, but truth be told, there is absolutely no substitute for putting pen to paper (or indeed, fingers to keyboard).

So, if you've long harboured the dream, then make yourself a promise that each day, for however much time you have spare, you will tie your leg to your desk AND WRITE.

My very first post on here, and talking about the post, this morning's delivery brought a very exciting package.  Advance copies of my brand new book, a third edition of Getting the Buggers to Write.  Tearing open the Jiffy envelope, two beautifully designed and printed books spill out.  First impressions - fab purple cover, love the new cover design, layout inside greatly improved.  Flicking through the pages - my words, my ideas, all mine, all mine.

Looking back into the fairly distant past, I can still remember vividly the day I received the very first copy of my very first book.  Holding it in my hands was a moment of huge joy for me.  I'm an author!  That's my name on the front!  This is my book!  I done this!  All these years on (12 to be precise), the buzz is still there.  And (of course) I still have that first copy of my first ever book.  The pages are a bit yellowing, for some reason there's a tea stain on the side, looking back the cover design was pretty awful.  But oh what a moment that was.  Followed not so long after by the buzz of going into Waterstones and seeing my book on their shelves.  Funnily enough that first book is still in print, although it's changed a huge amount over the years - I'll save that story for another post.

If you've ever thought of writing a book, if you've ever harboured that dream, then I hope you get round to it some day.  Because the buzz of being a real live professionally published author is worth every second of hard work that goes into creating a book.