'Have Notebook, Will Write'

 

“Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea forever.” – Will Self

Born in London on Sept. 26, 1961 Self is a novelist, journalist, political commentator, television personality and author of 12 novels, 6 collections of shorter fiction, and 9 collections of non-fiction writing that includes his newest best-seller Why Read.   Fiction, though, is his forte’ and he said. “I always wanted to write fiction. Always. As far back as I can remember it's been integral to my sense of myself - everything else was always a displacement activity.”

He is a graduate of Oxford University and first got interested in writing at age 10, greatly influenced by science fiction writers like Frank Herbert.  Self’s first published book, a 1991 collection of his short stories called The Quantity Theory of Insanity, thrust him into the public eye and since then he’s been nominated for many awards, in particular for his novels Umbrella and Dorian.

“The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement," the aptly named Self said.  "If you can't deal with this, you needn't apply.”