Benjamin Wood, author of 'The Young Accomplice' - Why routines are helpful, separating work and creativity, and learning creative writing

Writer's Routine

Dan Simpson

Arts, Books, Hobbies, Leisure

4.9 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Benjamin Wood has been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award and the Commonwealth Book Prize, he's a CWA Gold Dagger nominee and a finalist for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. He also lectures creative writing at King's College.

His 4th novel is 'The Young Apprentice'. It looks at Charlie and Joyce, recently released from borstal and starting a new life as an architecture apprentice. Until a figure from Joyce's past creeps back into her world, trying to drag them back to their old criminal life.

We talk about the separation between work and creativity, and how that's affected where he writes. Also why he uses longhand to get a different angle on a story, and what people learn in a creative writing lecture.

This week's episode is sponsored by 'Waiting for Jetpacks', the new short story collection, by John Lockhart. Grab a copy here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waiting-Jetpacks-John-Lockhart-ebook/dp/B08GM4SC68

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome along to writers' routine. This week we're chatting to Benjamin Wood. He's just published his fourth novel, The Young Accomplice, and is also a creative writing lecturer at King's College London, so there's a lot to talk about.
0:23.2	We chat through why he needs separation between work and creativity.
0:29.2	Also, why from all the creative pursuits that he's tried, it is writing that's stuck.
0:35.1	And we learn what he needs to know before he starts writing.
0:39.1	I always like to know two things about the plot. One, how late can I arrive into the story?
0:47.7	So how much of the drama that precedes the story can I cut past and then fold into the story as it's
0:56.8	unraveling? And the other thing is, what is the most dramatic point of action? Where am I steering
1:02.4	the novel towards? There is more on the way with Benjamin Wood in this week's writer's routine.
1:16.5	Yes. Well, Yes, welcome along to writers' routine.
1:18.3	Hello, thank you for being there.
1:19.4	My name's Dan Simpson.
1:32.0	This is where we take a look through an author's working day to find out how they take an idea, where they sit, when they work, how they do all of that to get the book done,
1:36.9	to get it out and publish so you can read it. Now, this week's episode is sponsored by Waiting for Jet Packs. It's a collection of short stories by the author John Lockhart.
1:42.5	There are 13 short stories in the set. Now, if you're
1:45.8	into stories of dystopia, I guess you'd call it, things that deal with technology and artificial
1:52.4	intelligence and space travel, if you ever ask the question, what if this were to happen to me,
1:59.3	this is the perfect book for you. All the stories are set in
2:04.1	versions of our world that are slightly different, but you can see yourself and where we live in them.
2:11.5	Now it reads spectacularly. It's beautifully written. It's sharp. It's smart science fiction.
2:18.2	And now John wrote it during lockdown after an idea that came to him eight years before and he thought it through, took time to work things over.
2:28.7	And then during the break of lockdown, he used that time wisely to write, to be creative.
2:37.3	There's a lot of creative talk in this episode, and John has done that.
	...

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