How I write: Ben Sanders

Auckland-based Ben Sanders, author of American Blood and his latest The Devils You Know, shares his writing experiences.

What’s your writing routine?

Writing time is nine to five, Wednesday to Friday. I always begin with a walk or some kind of exercise for about an hour. It’s like panning for gold in your brain: the stuff usable for fiction gets sifted out from the other leaden junk, and usually by the time I sit down to write I have a couple of little nuggets. Mornings are a slog: all backspace. But by midday I’ll find some rhythm.

And where do you write?

We have a home office, heavily fortified against procrastination.

Can you share a piece of good advice you’ve received about writing?

Maya Angelou once said that she wants her writing to be ‘‘so polished that it doesn’t look polished at all. I want a reader … to be a half-hour into my book before he realises it’s reading he’s doing.’’ It’s similar in a sense to Elmore Leonard’s rule: ‘‘If it sounds like writing, re-write it.’’ They’re great insights, because irrespective of genre or style, the goal is frictionless absorption of the reader into your world.

What advice do you give to writers starting out? I’mfond of this, from The Information, byMartin Amis: ‘‘Beware the aged critic with his hair of winebar sawdust.’’

What kind of books do you like to read for enjoyment?

My appetite for crime fiction gets used up by my writing, so I read a lot of literary and non-fiction. I love Ian McEwan and Christopher Hitchens, in particular. I read a lot of essay collections – I like being able to dip in for a self-contained dose of word-fuel.

‘‘Mornings are a slog: all backspace. But by midday I’ll find some rhythm.’’

Do you read physical books or digital ones?

I love bookshops and libraries and want them to endure, so I always read physical books.

Do you write in the margins of books?

Never. But people do. As Cormac McCarthy wrote: ‘‘Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction.’’

What ‘‘must read’’ book have you not read? Go on, fess up.

On a weekday a little after 1pm in mid-2012, I visited the Whitcoulls at Takapuna and used a $100 voucher to purchase The Great Gatsby, 1984, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I am yet to read any of them.