Gold8:

8. Golden Rule No. 8

Don't talk a book, write it

I spent many hours in Fleet Street pubs during my reporting days listening to colleagues talking graphically about the books they were planning to write. They talked a good book, but few of them got round to actually writing it.

It was the quiet ones who were getting on with the lonely job of writing and eventually getting into print.

You need to keep the story in your imagination, and not share it around. You not only run the risk of having your idea filched, but I can guarantee you will come up against the sneerers, the smirkers and the cynics who will do their best to shoot holes in your ambition. This is because they do not have the imagination or the get-up-and-go to write a book themselves.

Don't let small-minded, envious little people knock you down. You can, and you will write that book ... but not if you talk it. Keep it to yourself until you have your story written. Then, and only then, you can shout from the rooftops.

I worked with Leslie Thomas (well, I was his copy boy) on the old London Evening News in the 1950s when he came up with his idea for a book based on his National Service experiences. He shut himself away and wrote The Virgin Soldiers to launch a fabulously successful career as an author. He was not daft enough to tell anybody about his idea. The Virgin Soldiers. What a cracking title. If Leslie had talked about it, somebody might easily have stolen it.

Gerald Seymour and I were reporting colleagues on the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Gerald for ITN while I was writing for the Daily Express. Gerald kept disappearing to his hotel room putting words to the first of what has become a procession of best sellers. For every Leslie Thomas and Gerald Seymour there were a dozen other journalists talking abut the book they were going to write. The trouble was that by the time it came to write they were all talked out.

A quick, chilling anecdote about that 1970 World Cup trip to Mexico: I had half written my first novel called He Who Runs Away, about a bridegroom who runs off minutes before his wedding. I was working on it in Mexico, and was also reading the first draft of a novel by my Fleet Street colleague Peter 'The Poet' Batt, a gifted writer and a larger-than-life character.

When I left the Camino Royale Hotel in Mexico City at the end of the tournament I put my briefcase containing both our novels down on the ground while tossing my suitcases into the back of a cab. Then I climbed into the passenger seat and off we went, leaving the briefcase outside the hotel ... never to be seen again. It was one of the worst things that ever happened to me, not so much losing my novel but the beautifully crafted work that Peter had composed.

This was back in the pre-computer days when we typed everything and neither of us had been bright enough to put in a carbon. Dear old Peter somehow managed to take in the news of my stupidity without throttling me. To this day I shudder every time I think about it.

The lessons are clear: 1) always keep a copy; 2) never let your book into the hands of an idiot. Peter finally got around to writing his autobiography in 1999. There has rarely been such an explosively honest account of a man's life, and I recommend you read it if you want to know just how truthful an autobiography should be. It is simply called Batty, and is published by Headline. I owe Peter that plug!

Peter is one of those who breaks the golden rule of talking a book before he gets it down on paper, but he is such a naturally gifted writer that he can get away with it. Most of us should keep our mouths shut and get on with the writing.

Now on to Golden Rule No 9 and the importance of getting that first word down.

Golden rule No 8 is simply: write it, don't talk it. And always, always keep a copy.