James Dixon

I wrote the first drafts of both of my children’s novels by hand. It’s a great feeling: tactile, calming, a little ritualistic. I crack open a brand new Leuchtturm notebook, bought from the artsy place round the corner, pour myself an espresso, and set to work with the Cross ballpoint my nan gave me as a graduation present. It’s a slow and painstaking process, but one that is hugely rewarding. As a journalist and novelist, I can touch-type 100-odd words per minute, which is great when I’ve got a deadline for an article. It’s not what I’m after in a novel’s first draft manuscript, however. Time needs to be taken, the narrative voice discovered, pacing slowed a bit.

The old pipe smoker has become a bit of a figure of fun, an idiosyncratic oddity whom the young find ridiculous, if they notice him at all. This makes me rather sad because to me he’s a little bit heroic. Picture him sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree, the sun shining beyond, carefully filling his bowl, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb, before striking a match and coaxing the first few curls of bluish smoke into the afternoon air. It’s a ritual free from any sense of hurry and one from which we could all learn. Indeed, hurrying would defeat the point of pipe smoking. The ritual itself, slow and steady, is part of the pleasure.