Greg Lewis

What is like to be a writer? My desk is a mess. Scraps of paper. Pencil shavings. Open books. Stacked books. Post-It notes.

Got to desk at 7.00am today (times vary) and read the note I left on my desk last night (I always do this) reminding me what I was going to do next. This one’s basically about a restructuring of early chapters.

I mainly write non-fiction. Books which intertwine many people’s stories and come together at a point in history.

For the book I’m writing now I’m still working out which people I need to focus on – those who will recur throughout the story. Made two big decisions yesterday and my notes sum them up.

Haven’t started writing yet today. I got caught up in family things, then did some social media, decided Substack was a waste of time, and started thinking about tonight.

In fact, tonight is the main focus of today as I’m appearing on a great webinar called Lockdown University. Being interviewed by Dr Helen Fry about escape, evasion, resistance, and betrayal in occupied Europe.

Very excited. But it’s on my mind, making concentration on my current work-in-progress very difficult.

I’m still promoting other podcasts I’ve appeared on lately. (I’ll come back to a social media strategy in later diary entries.)

My latest book was a Sunday Times bestseller but it makes no difference to the amount of caring (elderly mother) or family duties (most important) I have to do. How often have been sitting here writing and wondering if the washing machine cycle has finished?

It also makes no difference to how many times my brain tells me I’m a failure.

I write non-fiction (although I have a novel published under a pseudonym – something else to come back to in this diary – and I also ghost-write) and spend a lot of time researching and organising my research.

For instance, in a recent trawl through an archive I copied thousands of documents. Exciting when you are discovering them; hell when you have to go through them.

Like many of you, I despair at the AI-generated ‘list posts’ that pop up everywhere now. Five tips to be a writer. Five things to clear the storage on your iPhone. Five reasons The Odyssey is the worst film of all time.

Fake smartness from posters of vague and dubious origin.

I’m human. I ramble. I make mistakes. And sometimes I end my posts abruptly.