Reading For Writing . . .

This week I find myself down in a pit of self-doubt, reminding me of that childhood feeling - the one that said I could never be as good as the writer of the great book I'd just put down. After a conversation with one of my editors about a submitted manuscript I'm now back to another undeveloped idea, a blank page and a bag of books to read. That part doesn't dishearten me too much. Editors and agents have very specific requirements and often a manuscript can be a good one but is rejected for either personal or commercial reasons. I love the story and if it's never published I'll still have the experience of the process of writing it, which will help.

I've already read one of the books - "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness - in a single sitting. It reduced me to tears, which came as a surprise. Films can get me that way but books rarely do. It was beautifully conceived, immaculately structured, convincing, truthful and - above all - powerfully humane. I don't think a children's or YA book has ever affected me as deeply.

That was yesterday. Today I write with that same feeling of "I could never write anything as good as that". But I'm trying to write myself out of that feeling here. It never stopped me as a child. It never stopped me as an unpublished writer. Why should it stop me as a published author? If I can somehow put myself back at school and see myself as a learner, I can reap something from the admiration and professional deflation I felt as I put "A Monster Calls" down. What was it that made the book so compelling?

In school I find that the most creative writers are often children who are avid readers. They aren't necessarily the most competent writers, but their ideas and their ability to build them into a story set their work apart. I suppose that extra exposure to good writing just sinks into the sub-conscious somehow. I always encourage a bit of well-disguised 'stealing' from authors at that age because it builds confidence and cements an understanding of what makes some stories successful and others not so successful.

After finishing "A Monster Calls", I went to the supermarket. Loading the boot of the car with the weekly supply of Cheesy Wotsits for the locusts, I moved aside a box containing books from my last school visit in July. Books by me. Books you can buy in a bookshop. I felt (a little bit) better.

I empathise with the British athlete who just came on the TV at the Olympics, knocked out in the first round of the hurdles. Like him, I need to get back to training, change something, do something better, ready for the next story.