Diversify or Die - how do you do it? by Nicola Morgan

Most writers have always had to have other jobs. No one owes us a living - I absolutely believe that. And increasingly, no one is going to give us one. We have to go and get it.

Not new and not a big deal. But something we have to keep thinking about, keep working around or with, keep battling against.

Most writers do not live by writing alone. Those who do are either exceptionally lucky or Anne Rooney, who actually does do some teaching and editing but who mainly works damn hard to write a crazy number of books, whether or not each one is precisely where her heart is, because she knows we can't always follow our hearts if we have to earn a living. A writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do. Like anyone, really.

So, diversification becomes a necessity. I'm very happy with diversification. I have a low boredom threshhold anyway, so flitting between fiction and non, teenage brains and teenage stress and teenage books, public-speaking and writing consultancy and writing bitty things for bitty places and all the things that occupy my day is a pleasure. But I really need to focus on things that make money, and not all those do. And most of them don't do much.

So, recently (yesterday, as I write this) I diversified further and opened a shop - not really thinking it would make me much money but hoping that it might make a bit and help sell my books. And be fun. Not a shop with a tinkly bell and clanky metal shutters that I could pull down at 5.30pm, but an online one with cool buttons such as Add to Cart and View Basket. Currently, it just has books and bags in it, but gosh how diversificatorily do I have plans! Anne Rooney will even approve of my plans, I'm pretty sure. Today I've been sourcing bags and tea-towels and biothings and designing content and contacting suppliers and dreaming big and bold and bright.

I almost forgot to write. Well, OK, I did forget to write.

And then, also today, I got the news that 110 schools have ordered class sets (I can't even do the maths) of The Highwayman's Footsteps and I remembered that I'm a writer and must not diversify so much that I forget that.

Because that's the problem. Diversification is dilution. And distraction. It's do or die but it's also do too much and die.

I'm excited about my shop but perhaps the next product I should design is a sign to go above my desk saying, 

Remember I'm a writer

How do you diversify? What would you do and what would you not do? How do you make a living as a writer or support your writing with something else?

I want aspiring authors to understand that the vast majority of us don't earn a living specifically from writing. I think this honesty is important. It's reality and life and what we work with. Every time an aspiring author tells me they want a publishing contract so that they can give up their job, or afford a better house, a little bit of my heart sinks. And then I remember that I enjoy what I do, and my heart flies again.

Maybe I could write a book about a shop. A shop where you buy dreams that don't last long. Because you wake up and smell the coffee and drink it and get working and then find that working is better than dreaming anyway.

Meanwhile, do keep an eye on my shop, where I will soon be offering a perfect gift for the writer in your life...

4 Classic School Visit Questions, by Piers Torday

I believe that children, especially primary school age children, are the most restlessly creative and imaginative human beings alive. Dragons who hate going to the dentist, parrots who have learned to fly underwater, and pandas who turn pineapples into hats are just a few of the recent inspiring creations from some of my creative writing workshops in schools.

Dana Fradon (New Yorker, 1953)

But they are also children, which means they are not always either aware of this huge imaginative potential, or equipped to access it on demand or under pressure. And of course, as children, they lack the emotional maturity, craft or life experience to do much with it - but that doesn't invalidate the strength of the imagination.

Left to their own devices, an arm curved round a piece of paper and a pen in their hand, endless improvised drawings and visualisations tumble forth with an unselfconscious energy that most adults - whether they are engaged in a creative industry or not - would envy. Every school visit for me proves Baudelaire right - "Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will."

Baudelaire looking at his most unchild friendly

However in school visits, this genius (quite understandably) often deserts children, when after forty minutes or so of authorial prancing round, they are asked to function like dull grown ups at a literary festival and "ask me a question".

Too often, this places the discourse no longer in the world of castle in the clouds world of make-believe and stories, but in the constant over-the-shoulder looking world of careers, worry, tested expectation and obsessive productivity that our current cultural system irrevocably steers most human beings towards. And so, they try to function accordingly, and I'm sure many of you will have heard the questions below.

I always answer them as truthfully and as honestly as I can, because it is impossible on such brief acquaintance to separate the earnest and authentic enquiry by the next J K Rowling from the unthinking auto-response nervously asked on rote. But here are some more alternative replies I dream of on the bus back.

1) How long did it take you to write your book?

I wrote this book in forty seconds while my demon wrapped a girdle around the world 

OR

I have been labouring on this tome since the dawn of time, when beings as yet unknown to man appeared in the sacred flame, whispering the collective knowledge of the last great civilization, and bid me decode them for your permanent improvement.

2) Do you know any celebrities?

I wouldn't say I know that many celebrities, but put it this way - Harry Styles is my chauffeur.

Harry Styles has recently abandoned a successful pop career to drive children's authors to school visits.

3) How much do you get paid?

Every week, the Aka Khan, the world's richest man no-one has heard of, sends me a private jet laden with jewels and treasure beyond your imagining from his vaults, such is the value he places on children's literature.

4) Are you going to write any more books?

I will write as the muse dictates. Whether it be a book a week, or a book every quarter of century, the volume is irrelevant - what counts is the power of the story and love for life, the world and all she has to offer contained within its pages.

But of course - every fifth question can be a gem. What's the most unexpected thing you've been asked on a school visit, and what did you reply?

I think my favourite is still the boy who said "Could you make your next book a bit shorter?"

Piers Torday
@PiersTorday
www.pierstorday.co.uk