Pen top gear

One of the best bits of career advice I ever got was when a writer whose work I admired told me that the best way to make a living from the pen was to diversify. “You’ll call yourself a writer, and that’s true,” he said, “but you’ll make most of your living from the activities at the periphery of writing; you’ll run workshops and you’ll give readings. You’ll go into schools and writers’ groups, and you’ll judge writing competitions and you’ll edit other people’s work and at times it will feel that there’s no time for your own writing but all these other activities feed the writing because they involve thinking as hard about language as you possibly can.”

I’ve decided that I need to diversify even further, however, to keep one step ahead of The Competition, as I call every other writer in the world, and the result is The Ian McMillan Range of Clothing For Writers or, to give it a snappier title, Writerwear. Here’s the catalogue; have a flick through and you can decide if there’s anything you need.

Ah yes, the hats, I thought you’d like them. You may call them hats but I call them Author’s Thinking Caps. Writerwear offers a bespoke range of headgear for keyboardtappers of every genre. Try this flat cap on. Yes, now you’re ready to write something gritty and Northern. This stetson will get you in the mood for writing about the endless plains and the gunfight at the OK Corral. This homburg hat will help you to devise the most complex whodunnit plot ever imagined in the new sub-sub genre called Barnsley Noir.

This space helmet is useful for science fiction and this lump of untreated head-cloth is a real brain-boon when you’re putting together a series of prehistoric romance novels.

That’s the hats; what about these socks? Can I interest you in a par of Scribe Sox? Yes, you’re right, they are a little baggier than your average sock and that’s because, if I turn the Scribe Sox inside out, you’ll be able to see a series of micro-pockets for all those really important things that the writer might need at any moment: here’s a notebook, a tiny pen, a rubber, a torch to find any ideas you might have lost under the settee.

And yes, this is the crowning glory: the PJ or to give it its full name, The Printer Jacket. We all know electrical items are getting smaller these days but the PJ really is a miracle of technology. It’s a waferthin printer that fits snugly under your jacket like a vest. Need an article printing quickly? Just unfasten your shirt, insert your hand round the back and click Print. Now, no matter how far you are from the office, you can print that talk just as you’re walking into the meeting room.

It’s the future for scribes! At least I hope so!