If you can do this, then every holiday, every trip you take, can feed your writing. You’re never really resting. You’re observing, collating, picking up material.

I suppose this is a continuation of the theme I began last week. How can you use the holidays to practise your writing, without locking yourself away entirely.

See yourself as a character and your life as a series of journeys. When you tell stories at the dinner table, tell them as a series of scenes, with dialogue. Collect anecdotes and scenes, scraps of dialogue and even phrases from the people around you . Scribble them down in your notebook.

Everything becomes grist to the mill eventually, and if you can see life through a story-teller’s eyes, everything becomes a good story eventually.

For many years after I left home, I always cried at Christmas. I retained the magical feeling that something special…