‘I sit down and it comes to me… I don’t agonise before I start a book’
Alexander Mccall Smith, who writes a staggering 1,000 words per hour, reveals the secret of his success, reports George Mair
PROLIFIC novelist Alexander Mccall Smith says he never struggles with new plots because he just sits down and they come to him fully formed.
The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency writer, 72, said he writes 1,000 words per hour and rarely has to make alterations, while producing a prodigious “five or six books a year”.
In addition to his popular Mma Precious Ramotswe books, set in Botswana, his other series include the 44 Scotland Street and Sunday Philosophy Club novels set in Edinburgh and Detective Varg titles based in Sweden.
He said: “I sit down and it comes to me. I’m very conscious of my good fortune in that respect and I am very pleased that that’s the way I work because it doesn’t require me to agonise before I start a book.
“I’ve got a general idea of what will happen but when I sit down there is a blank sheet there -- metaphorically, as I use a computer -- and I wait for the text to come, and it comes. I don’t really have to think about it, it’s rather strange.
“I don’t say to myself ‘what’s going to happen now? It just comes and it comes very quickly.
“I write about 1,000 words an hour and I don’t really have to revise it. It comes formed on to the page.
“I think that all that’s happening there is that I’ve developed particular brain pathways to that part of the subconscious mind which is composing fiction.
“It’s the same way in which we hear a melody in our minds and then we can articulate that in some way, but it comes from somewhere deep inside.”
Mccall Smith is one of Scotland’s most successful international novelists, selling more than 40 million books, translated into 46 languages around the world.
Referring to his latest Varg novel, his Swedish series about Malmo detective Ulf Varg and his hearing impaired dog Marten, he added: “I’ve got about a page of notes on what is going to happen to Ulf, that’s all.
“I’m not one of these people who plots it out all very carefully beforehand and puts lots of post-it notes on the wall or anything of that sort. I admire those people but I’m not one of them.”
Speaking in an online event for the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the author said it was essential to stick to a regime, and his own involves getting up to work at 4am before returning to bed after two or three hours of writing.
He said: “I do find that the early morning is quite a good time for me because it’s quiet, the telephone isn’t ringing and one’s mind is fresh.
“I write early in the morning, I’ll then go back and have a bit more sleep and then I might work during the course of the morning... I find I can’t really write in the afternoon, I don’t do that particularly well.”
Despite his success, however, he revealed not all of his work has seen the light of day.
He said: “Every writer has a drawer and in that drawer you’ll find manuscripts that didn’t deserve to be published and shouldn’t in any circumstances be published -- we all have that.
“I’ve certainly got unpublished manuscripts in the house but there’s a reason why they are unpublished and there’s a powerful reason why they won’t be published.”
The author has recently produced a collection of poems, and has also written libreti and other song lyrics for composers.
He said he hopes there will be a musical version of The No 1. Ladies’ Detective Agency.
He said: “We hope so, eventually. There has been work done on that but it’s going to take a long time, if it ever gets to that point.
“A lot of the music is there but it’s a very complicated process -- rather like films, which take forever to get off the ground.
“I would love to see a musical of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.”
I would love to see a musical of The No 1. Ladies’ Detective Agency