‘Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip,’ said the great Elmore Leonard, laconic as he always was, on being asked to give tips about writing. Wonderful advice, tough advice, like being told that the trick is just to write one sentence that requires the reader go on and read the next sentence. And having done that, just go on doing it over and over – until you’ve got the blog, the article, the script, the whatever. Sounds simple, right? Not so much!
Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, about a million years ago, and just beginning to think that I wanted to spend my life writing, I interviewed Leonard in London for the magazine Time Out. This was way before he became such an institution, the guy who would inspire Quentin Tarantino, the dude who both Stephen King and Martin Amis tagged as ‘the great American writer’ – a long time before ‘Get Shorty’ and ‘Out of Sight’ and ‘Justified’ in other words.
The interview happened at in Islington, in North London, where I was living at the time. Leonard rolled up on foot, dressed all in black, sporting a black flat cap like you see in lots of the pictures. ‘A pleasure,’ he said, offering a firm handshake, and sitting down, but not taking off the cap.
Interview done, and being a shameless fan, I asked Elmore to if he’d mind signing a few books. He said sure, and didn’t blink when I plunked down a giant stack: a bunch of hardbacks and about thirty paperbacks, including copies of the Westerns he’d written in the 1950s, and old Avon editions of ‘Unknown Man 89’, ‘52 Pick-Up’, ‘City Primeval’ – those fabulous Detroit-based stories where everybody screws shit up and plans always go wrong, novels that still rank among his best as far as I’m concerned, and books I go back to again and again. Elmore went through the pile, signing each one in a neat hand, demonstrating the same care, I later came to realize, that he brought to any act of writing. This man knew his craft inside-out and went at any part of it with love.
‘Just keep going,’ he said, when I told him I was trying to be a writer. ‘All you ever need is this …’
He nodded in the direction of a pencil on my work table.
‘And that.’
Next gesture – towards a yellow legal pad.
‘Only you can stop you,’ he said. ‘That’s the craziest thing about this job.’
Well – writing is a crazy job all right. But, such as I am, many years happily married, and a dad to two grown and still growing sons, I have kept at it and haven’t quite yet managed to stop myself. Despite many attempts! The first draft of a new novel awaits the moment when I get back to it and give it some love and care. ‘Knightfall’, a historical TV drama I co-created with my friend and writing partner Don Handfield, premieres on the History Channel and all around the world this week. Don and I have a bunch of other projects, including ‘The Rift’, a comic book which we’re looking to turn into a TV show.
Evidence of all this, and decades of previous eager-beaverism is up on this new website, created for me by the totally wonderful Sharon Sim and with a shout-out and big thank you to Amanda Glover. There’s plenty of ‘Knightfall’ stuff to check out, and lots about my previous books, including, in the ‘Los Angeles Without a Map’ section, a cool interview with a guy who looks uncannily like a young David Tennant and actually IS the very young David Tennant. Surreal as it now seems, David once played me on the big screen. He’s currently shooting ‘Good Omens’, based on the classic Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel, and being directed by Douglas Mackinnon who, in one of those weird coincidence/serendipity type imbroglios that so impressed both Carl Jung and Arthur Koestler, also brilliantly helmed six episodes of ‘Knightfall’. Douglas is a totally awesome bloke, and a scintillating talent. So there you go. Thanks for dropping by the site, and I’ll blog again soon. Richard
