Austin Kleon’s Blog and Newsletter
Where would any of us be without the Ohio-born, Texas-based “writer who draws”, the author of the Steal Like An Artist trilogy (consisting of Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work! and Keep Going) and the emperor of having had a thought or signposting you to someone else’s thought on pretty much every creative conundrum you might ever come up against? He makes mixtapes and rescues vinyl records from people’s rubbish — he has separate work stations for analogue and digital projects — he has owls who occasionally use his nest boxes — and he’s the man who planted the idea in my head of watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in black and white. I hope one day to meet him and give him a great big hug of gratitude.

First You Write A Sentence by Joe Moran
A book that inspires you with the joy Joe Moran feels and finds in word choices and sentence structures, and the magic that happens when a writer gets it right. In the act of celebrating the thrills of grammar and shining light on examples of delicious writing across history, he coaxes us along our own journey to becoming ever better writers, never through scolding or rapping our knuckles, but always through showing by his own quiet example how to make every sentence count.

99 Plays — Key Plays since The Oresteia by Nicholas Wright
Sadly, tragically, out of print for many years, but the odd precious copy pops up on Ebay from time to time. If you ever see a copy of this somewhere, BUY IT IMMEDIATELY.

A wise and wonderful book by a man who really, really knew plays and really, really, really loved them. Reading this is enough to make even the most hard-bitten writer or theatre-maker fall in love with theatre again. And as it was written in 1992, it begs the question of which works from the last thirty-odd years belong in there now, and which of the old 99 you’d have to sacrifice to make room for them…*

(* — I’d get rid of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot in less time that it will take you to finish reading this sentence.)

How Novels Work by John Mullan
Spawned by his ‘Elements of Fiction’ column for The Guardian and then expanded and elaborated into a book all of its own, this is an absolute cracker which would work in its own magical ways for writers and readers (who actually read) and also for students (who increasingly do anything but read, it seems.) His case for speaking of the “inadequate narrator” in preference to the “unreliable narrator” is worth the purchase price alone. There’s lots, lots more worth discovering in here. I’m a bit of a John Mullan fanboy now (insert blushing emoji).

Being A Writer by Travis Elborough and Helen Gordon
One of those books you oughtn’t like but absolutely do, a compilation of what other writers have had to say over the years on the practicalities of writing, from motivation and generation through to rules that are made and then broken, via writer’s block, tricky endings and dealing with failure. Whenever you come across a favourite writer who ISN’T quoted in here, it’s a great spur to doing some research to find out what they had to say on the matter.

The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker
If anyone has read this from cover to cover, I take my hat off to them. I never have and doubt I ever will. It’s a book for grazing at rather than devouring, something to dip into when you’re panicking that you’ll never find a satisfying shape for your latest idea, or when you need a steadying hand to guide you through some archetypal reference points as you figure out what direction you’re heading in. (To spare your curiosity — the seven basic plots are Comedy; Tragedy; Rebirth; Overcoming The Monster; Rags To Riches; The Quest; and my personal favourite, Voyage and Return.)

Pep Talks For Writers by Grant Faulkner
In lazy or uncommitted hands, this could easily be one of those books that you read as a distraction from getting stuck into doing some actual writing. It ends with the words “You Are A Creator. Create. (But you knew that already, didn’t you?)” but primarily this is a philosophical tract on finding your literary mojo rather than something that will have you throwing the book down in the white heat of passion to start writing. It’s none the worse for that.