The Hindu Business Line : Jeffrey Archer and the art of writing

That writing is really all about ‘rewriting’ was brought home to us journalists when we got a chance to meet celebrated author Jeffrey Archer, currently on a book tour in India. His last work, he says, went through a painful 17 drafts. And he doesn’t use computers to write. It is still the good old pen and ruled paper for him — so you can imagine the effort that this method requires. But it works for him. And he says it helps him think about the nex t sentence even while writing one.

For this novelist who has written 13 novels, a couple of plays and few collections of short stories, and been read by every 12th person on this planet, the beginnings were inauspicious. He says he was rejected by 18 publishers before he got published the first time in 1976. What kept him going? He concedes that he was just about starting to get depressed when a Swedish publisher bought his first book. The next was an American publisher.

It was only then that his homeland, England, discovered him. Ask him about this and he says that the fact that he was a Member of Parliament may have had something to do with it. There was a prejudice that MPs can’t write — and that he would always go back to politics and never write again. “Publishers don’t like people who write just one book and disappear,” he says with a laugh.

He says he is pleasantly surprised and flattered by the attention that he and his books have been getting in India. It’s been a journey of discovery for him. And he’s also discovered the writings of R. K. Narayan, which he calls pure magic.

Has he ever faced such a thing as a writer’s block? He pours scorn on the idea. “Never,” he thunders. Ask him about the writing process he follows, and the answer he gives may alarm many a member of our fraternity.

“I get up by 5.00 a.m., write for two hours between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and again between 10 a.m. and 12 noon and between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. and between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. You have got to be self-disciplined. Nobody gets anywhere without working hard. Lazy people will get killed. You have got to love what you do,” he says with fervour.

He says he loves writing and will keep doing it till the end. He says he would like to die with his boots on — have an unfinished manuscript that he is working on when the Maker’s call comes. For the weaver of innumerable tales of drama and thrill, there can’t be a better end to hope for.