Scribble, Scribble, Scribble

The true writer is one who can't help but write, suggestsAustralian author Jenny Sinclair: "Magazine editors, publishers and writing competitions are groaning under the output of all those writing courses and I want to say stop. Stop if you can. And if you can't stop, write." For good measure, she adds: "It's not writing that should be encouraged but reading, widely and voraciously, reading the classics, reading the modern masters." For the rest of us, says Stuart McGurk in The Times, there's "a computer program called NewNovelist that claims to 'break down the novel-writing process into small, manageable tasks so even the most inexperienced writers can write a novel'." His conclusion, after trying it out for himself: "98 per cent crap, 2 per cent sense. Bit like the idea that most people have a novel in them, really."