Some of the cast of the new Old Vic all female production of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’

When writing my novels, the question most often uppermost in my mind when creating dialogue is ‘would this person/character actually say this, even though they are thinking it’. And the answer, in fiction as in real life, is never easy.

As a human being, as opposed to a fictional character, I know I am often inclined to say things that other people would keep to themselves. I have a kind of blindness sometimes to the effects that words can have on people. It has cost me much over the years, and I have never really managed to tame it. This is partly out of a genuine inability, sometimes, to read the room, and at other times, a bloody mindedness that says, ‘let’s just be honest here for once’. Either way, I spend a lot of my time trying to work out, whether face to face or by email, what I should and shouldn't say.

As an author I know my characters go through the same dilemma, to a greater or lesser extent. It comes down to this question - how truthful should you be? And how useful - to you or anyone else - will it be if you are truthful?

Words I have come to understand - perhaps too late in life, considering I have made my living through them - are weapons and shields. They are rarely just the neutral exchange of information. Often people are asking for something when they speak, without wishing to reveal they are asking for something. Or they are insulting someone, but behind their hand, with plausible deniability. Words, in short, are slippery.

Read more

A generous gift from a grateful recent mentoree, the novelist and writer Anna Pasternak

I can help you start - or finish - your novel or memoir. I have published 10 novels. My memoir is a Penguin Modern Classic, my first novel won a Whitbread Award. I have written YA, literary, fantasy and thriller.  I taught for the Faber Academy and Guardian Masterclasses. I coach writers of all levels from inception  to completion. I am empathetic and encouraging, but also committed to excellence.

Who Am I - And How Does It Work?

I have been a published author for more than 25 years. I've also worked as a TV producer, a journalist and a magazine editor.

My first book, 'The Scent of Dried Roses' won the PEN award for autobiography and is now a Penguin Modern Classic. My first novel, 'White City Blue' won the Whitbread Prize for best first novel. My second novel, ' Rumours of a Hurricane' was shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Whitbread Best Novel award. My Young Adult book, 'Fearless' was longlisted for the Guardian Children's Book award. My thriller novel, 'The Seymour Tapes' was purchased by Sony TV last year and is awaiting production.

My book on writing was published by Swift Press in 2023

.

I live in North West London and Kent, and I conduct my mentoring sessions either over Zoom or in person at my writing studio in North Kensington. I coach beginner writers, talented amateurs, professionals and anyone who stuck on their creative journey. My process is one of creative partnership rather than top-down teaching, that is to say, I also contribute imaginatively as much as I can to the writing project - not simply critique any submission I receive.


There are FIVE options for my mentoring services.

Option 1: 

One-to-one mentoring over the space of a year. An opportunity for authors of all levels to receive tailored advice over ten individual sessions for a period of up to 12 months. I will guide you through the entire process of drafting a novel from start to finish and provide invaluable advice on approaching agents and publishers. You will make ten submissions of up to 7,500 words for each submission.

Option 2: Manuscript appraisal. 

Give your book the best possible chance of being accepted by an agent. If you’ve completed the first draft of your novel, I will read your manuscript in depth and provided detailed personalised feedback. If it has reached a publishable standard, I will offer advice on how to get it into print. NB there is a surcharge for manuscripts of more than 80,000 words.

Option 3: One-to-one mentoring + Final Manuscript Appraisal. 

If you’re near the beginning of your journey as a novelist, this option will help you to find your feet and kickstart the challenging process of writing a work of fiction. For a time period of up to one year, I will read six writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them. Then, when you have finished the novel, I will read it and feed back to you in detail on your final draft. 

Option 4: Initial Manuscript appraisal + One-to-one mentoring. 

If you’ve begun writing your novel but require feedback and guidance in order to bring it to completion, this option will help you to continue your narrative and reach your goal of completing your novel. You will have written up to a half of your novel (max 40,000 words, or a surcharge of £100 per 10,000 words applies). Tim will provide feedback and direction on how to develop your novel further and reach completion. For a time period of up to one year, Tim will read – subsequent to reading and considering the first half of the novel – six further writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them.
Each feedback session includes a one-hour meeting (either in person or via Skype), during which your writing is discussed at length.

Option 5: Kickstarter. 

This option is ideal for those just wishing to get their first novel underway. Tim will give an initial in depth 90-minute meeting (either in person or via Zoom) to assess your novel idea, the problems you wish to address and your state of progress.
Over a six-month period, Tim will assess five submissions of up to 7,500 words each from you and give personal feedback in an hour-long meeting after each submission (either in person or via Skype).

My book on writing. ‘Yes!No! But Wait! The One Thing You Need To Know To Write A Novel’ was published in 2023 by Swift Press.

 Further Details Of My Mentoring Services Can Be Accessed Here

 You Can Read More About My Writing Career Here

How Much Does It Cost?

Option 1: £2750

Option 2: £1200

Option 3: £2,750

Option 4: £2,750

Option 5: £1, 900

 All fees payable in advance.

Testimonials About My Teaching

The mock-cover featured here was given to me as a gift last year by a previous Radio H-P mentoree, Anna Pasternak, who found my teaching invaluable. Anna has already published a number of best selling books, but sought my help with a new project.

“Shaping a novel chapter by chapter requires complex psychological insight. Tim Lott possesses that insight” - Robert McKee, author, ‘Story’.

“Tim Lott is one of the few novelists who truly understands story structure” - John Yorke, author, ‘Into the Woods’. 

“Tim Lott has long experience of the practice of writing fiction as well as a deep knowledge the theory of story craft – a rare yet essential combination“ - Will Storr, author, ‘The Science of Storytelling’.

Testimonials About My Writing

‘The Scent of Dried Roses’ - “Brilliant” Hilary Mantel “To read it is to be spellbound as by a gripping novel” Ruth Rendell.

‘Fearless’ – “Powerful, haunting and utterly original – an immediate classic" - Jacqueline Wilson

‘Rumours of a Hurricane’ – “The first great novel of the 21st Century” - Tony Parsons

Read more reviews of my books at timlott.com

How Can I Learn More?

If you want to talk to me about the working process, message me at timlott@me.com and we can arrange for a chat on Zoom or phone.

In the meantime, if you go to the link below, you can watch a video about my mentoring process.

Will You Help Me Find An Agent or Publisher?

If you complete the mentoring programme, I will consider forwarding your work/details to one of my agents - Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander (fiction) Ruth Cairns at Featherstone Cairns ( memoir ) or Caroline Walsh at David Higham Associates ( Young Adult). I only refer work I truly judge to be exceptional. However, in all cases I can advise on how to best present work to publishers and agents.

Quality Control

I receive a lot of applications for mentoring. However, not everyone feels the right fit for me. I need to be sure that the mentoree is committed to the process and that they possess a certain level of potential. I accept most applications for mentoring, but now and then I have to turn an applicant down, if I don't feel they are sufficiently developed as a writer. This is essential to make sure that I do not lead anyone by the nose. I don't believe in taking money from people who I feel sure are either not committed enough, or lack the basic skills, to learn the craft of writing. I pride myself on being honest and straightforward with people - many writing teachers happily flatter their clients in order to ensure their fees - but I am commited to teach with integrity and only for those who I feel can benefit from a creative partnership.

What If It Doesn't Work Out?

On Options 1 and 3, you have the chance to cancel your mentoring programme after the first session in which case you will receive a refund of 80 per cent. In all other cases, refunds are not offered except in the case of professional misconduct.

Finally...

Writing a book is a long and often difficult process, emotionally as well as technically. I am dedicated to supporting you in both areas. 

Whether or not you decide to investigate further, I wish you well in your journey to become a writer.

My father, a few months before he died, on safari in Africa with me.

I wrote this piece a few days after my father died. Now as Father’s Day approaches I think of him again. I loved him very much, and still miss him.

The call came on a Sunday afternoon. My 87-year-old father, who was in a hospital on the Welsh borders, was suffering kidney failure. I had to get there fast. I set off on the four-hour drive immediately. The weather worsened to a buffeting, vicious swirl. The snow was a million white scrawls etched on the night. Fog and mist and rain and sleet joined the chorus of weather. I reached the small cottage hospital after the dark had enfolded everything. I entered the ward where my father lay. He was parchment and bone, but still handsome, noble, even. I leaned over him. His eyes were open, cornflowers frosted with death. My tears fell, and ran down his cheek, leaving a glistening channel. He recognized me, and broadcast a smile that blistered like desert sunlight. He could hardly speak anymore. But even the clearing of his throat was specific and familiar, recognizably him. I told him I loved him. An answering rasp emerged from the depths. I understood the broken words completely. I smiled back in acknowledgement. It took more than two more days before the end came. That time passed differentlyfrom how I had expected. Sad, but also tender and positive and beautiful. Death is so intimate –more intimate than first love. I could hold his hand, gaze into his eyes, stare unhindered at his tender face, stroke his frosty hair. He was very thin, skin the colour of a dried corn husk. His mouth a dark tunnel. The jagged mountain ranges of his ruined teeth. The petrified forests of his hair. The failing locomotive of his breath. The sadness of the black, bobbled socks on his calves. Yet he was irreducibly who he had always been.Much of the time he seemed unaware of what was happening. Then sometimes the veil lifted and he saw us and the sun shone through the pores and creases of his face. Such a smile. He would raise his eyebrows quizzically, as he always did, as if to say ‘isn’t this absurd’? My brother arrived, then my eldest daughter. We grabbed sleep where we could. His wife,my stepmother, who adored him, slept on the floor by his bed. There was laughter, reminiscence, an unexpected joy.My father’s wife was appearing in a pantomime that week, as the villainess, all dressed in green silk with a feather headdress. She sashayed into his room on the last afternoon in full costume. Wonderfully, unexpectedly, my father laughed.

It was 3.15 in the morning when the call from the hospital came. I had finally retired to a hotel around the corner. I went to join my stepmother. She stared at me when I arrived, but she didn’t see me.

We gathered up our belongings, and left him his blue tracksuit to be dressed in for the last journey. He always loved that tracksuit. Igave my father a last kiss. The next day the snow had come again. We went to the small churchyard, visible from the window of his modest house . Everything was cold and beautiful. His widow –how odd that word sounds -pointed out where she would like his plot. Where he could be seen from his home.I wept –we all wept –but not for his life. Hewas fulfilled.He had spent his working life, happily, as a greengrocer. He was a good man, adored, almost revered, by his wife and family. He accepted himself. Not least of all, he loved his country and wanted to be nowhere else. He was fully content with his life. The funeral will be soon. Black is to be prohibited. The daffodils will be rising, and my father will be distributed there, through the earth and the trees and the air. I will miss him, but I will never mourn him. His death, was, like the man himself, was profoundly average yet utterly exceptional.

I once saw my eldest daughter teaching my youngest daughter a clapping song –‘Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack/All dressed in black, black, black/With silver buttons, buttons, buttons/All down her back, back, back.’ This song was taught to her by her mother. She, presumably, was taught it either by her own mother or by her school friends.

This rhyme, I later discovered, stretches back to the American civil war. It then struck me that childhood is not only a situation in time,but a whole culture, a historical dynamic, from which adults are largely excluded, except as slightly puzzled observers.

There is a wonderful book about this subject I happened upon in an Oxfam shop recently, called ‘ ‘The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren’, first published in 1959 by Iona and Peter Opie. ‘Miss Mary Mack’does not appear in it, but what is extraordinary is that many of the games and codes employed by children 50 years ago had pre-existed the book for many scores of years –and that many of them continue still now. This isn’t only true of obviously ancient examples of rhymes and songs –like ‘Ring a Ring A Roses’ and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’. It also applies to social injunctions, taboos and invocations.For instance declaring a truce when playing a game was for me the utterance ‘vainites’. This has been replaced for my children by ‘homey’ or ‘time out’. But ‘vainites’ (or ‘fainites’) itself is doubtless still being used in many parts of Britain as it was in 1959. ‘Olly Ollyee’ was the truce code in Portsmouth, and I remember David Mamet writing of the call of ‘Olly Olly oxen free’ at evening in Chicago.

The culture of children is sometime an Esperanto, crossing continents.I was surprised by the depth and range of these childhoodcodes.The Opie book contains sections on ’Parody and Impropriety’ ‘The Child and Authority’ ‘Jeers and Torments’ and ‘Half Beliefs’ (or superstitions) such as ‘step on a beetle/it will rain/pick it up and bury it/the sun will shine again’ (Swansea).

Many of these superstitions still endure –for instance the danger of treading on cracks in the pavement (ifyou tread on a crack, or tread on a spout/It’s a sure thing your mother will turn you out). There is a whole section about the child-folklore of‘Lines onPavements’. Nowadays, Charlie and Lola warn children against ‘pavement bears’. I recently heard children chanting ‘See a penny pick it up, then all day you’ll have good luck’. A century and a half a go, children in America were singing ‘See a pin and pick it up/then all day you’ll have good luck’)

This book came as a revelation, because I realized that children do not only exist in our culture –the one defined by their parents and the wider society –but their own, if you like, counter culture, inherited and inflected across the regions and down the ages, a system that involves taboos, punishments and a rough system of justice.

Transgressions, for instance, may be punished with a ‘Chinese Burn’ which were being handed out when I was a kid -knownin the US as an ‘Indian Burn’ -which involves twisting your hands hard round someone’s wrist.In the section on ‘Tortures’ (!) it mentions hair pulling, the ‘barley sugar’ (twisting the arm)and of course that birthday treat, the bumps. So next time you tell your children to stop being so mean singing ‘ see my finger/see my thumb/see my fist/you’d better run’, you should be aware that you are imposing your cultural values on a long established and venerable system of codes and signals. I think of it as ‘sugar rush Sharia’ -softer, but ancientand self-perpetuating witha dynamic, a justice system, a system of punishments, as well as a language and a logic of all of its own.

This article was originally published in The Guardian.

View from my beach hut.

There is a small wooden shed on the seafront in the seaside town of Whitstable that I acquired a few years back. It doesn’t look like much. Indeed it isn’t much - until you get inside it and look out. Then a great expanse of sea and sky opens up, or when the tide is out, acres of marshy mudflats. Seabirds cluster and gabble where the tide reaches the shore and sandbanks stretch out like giant fingers from the palm of the landmass.

To the right in the far distance are two landmarks - the Whitstable Sea Forts, bizarre constructions a few miles out to sea that were built during the second world war to take pot shots at Luftwaffe pilots as they flew toward the coast, and further along towards Margate, great banks of wind turbines slowly revolving like thoughts.

This is the view that tempted me to buy the shed in the first place. I imagined sitting in front of my writing desk there, gazing into the ever-changing hues of sea and sky as my imagination formed its own clouds in my head, and what fell from them I would capture on my MacBook Air and convert into fiction.

It didn’t happen that way. Every time I went down to the shed with my computer, I just stared out the doors of the shed at the skyline. Maybe I smoked a cigarette, or made myself a cup of coffee. But I don’t think I have written a single word in my dream location.

Which is only to say this. Location doesn’t matter when you are a writer. I heard of one writer who had an amazing penthouse overlooking Central Park in New York. When he was writing, he turned his chair and desk around to face the wall. He didn’t want to be distracted by the view.

Being a writer is living in your head. When you live in your head, what is ‘out there’, either beautiful or ugly, makes little difference. It’s important to me that it’s quiet, light and warm. Apart from that, for me, where I am is nowhere. The much romanticised ‘writer’s garret’ is a nineteenth century literary fantasy.

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When I was growing up , Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ was inescapable. Every pub singer, every karaoke night featured elderly men delivering the lyrics, often choked with sentiment. The song had become so iconic that BBC’s ‘Arena’ documentary series devoted a whole episode to it. Even David Bowie recorded it at one time.

I never liked the song myself, mainly because at the time I was a proto-punk/new waver who thought all that crooner stuff was garbage. I have learned since that Sinatra was an amazing singer. But I still hate the song - although now for different reasons.

There was a time when I would have understood the sentiments behind ‘My Way’ - the protagonist of the song being a man at the end of his life valorising his own bravery, resilience and independence. Without quoting all the lyrics - which are here if you want to check them My Way Lyrics the message is clear, and in a way, is a trope of liberalism of the Henry Fonda/12 Angry Men or Gregory Peck/To Kill A Mockingbird type. That is, stand tall, speak your truth, be strong, show no regrets and, ultimately, do what the hell you want if you feel its right. The same sentiment is apparent in a lot of country and western songs, most notably Johnny Cash/Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’.

Read more

Do you argue with your partner? I do. Or I did, when I had one. If you don’t, frankly, you’re weird. Or passive aggressive.Or just passive. Or all three. It doesn’t matter –the thing is, partners disagree. Perhaps the disagreements don’t make it even to the argument/discussion stage–but the disagreements remain. I expect that most relationships have much the same arguments most of the time. Here’s my guess at the top ten reasons for relationship conflicts. I have mainly used the admittedly heteronormative delineation of men and women in my examples, but that’s where my experience is limited to.

1. Sex.

This is one of the most likely to be unexpressed, since bringing up the subject can make both parties self-conscious when they get in between the sheets, and losing self-consciousness is what sex is all about. Or used to be - things have evolved a bit since I was remotely active in that department and self consciousness about sex seems to have largely disappeared in this highly pornographied, instant fix culture. The differences used to be able to be summed up pretty simply. Either one partner wants more, or one partner wants less, or in a worst case scenario, both. However, nowadays people are more likely to argue about whether the third in a throuple is pulling their weight or if the butt plug is the correct gauge. Conflict is never far away though.

2. Tidiness/Cleanliness

Never have existed two people who had exactly the same standards in these areas. To one person the other will always be a slob. To the slob, the other will be a control freak. Accepting these differences and that there are limits to the amount that the other is capable of changing is the secret of solving this conundrum.Or, on the other hand, arguing.

3. False memory syndrome.

Many arguments are not about the fact of what happened but how it is remembered. Everybody mythologises the past in order to put themselves in the best light. So when it comes down to trying to work out what went wrong when you had a disagreement, it becomes very hard, since each party uses imagination to supplement memory -indeed, create memory. Since therefore you can never quite agree on common facts, this is rich territory for conflict

5. Blame addiction.

One thing most of us don’t grow out of is that when things go wrong, we need someone to blame. We find the force of circumstance too threateningly random an explanation. Introverts blame themselves. Extroverts blame other people. This is why they often end up together.

6. Who decides what’s best for the children.

If you have a family, a large number of arguments are about the right way of bringing up the kids. Once upon a time it was clear –it was the mother. Or the father, depending on which era you choose. Now it’sanybody’s guess. Of course one can try quiet, rational negotiation between two adults leading to a sensible mutual outcome. Or one can ask a magic fairy to intervene. Either are equally likely to occur.

7. Interior design

Once again this used to be one partner’s domain -the woman’s, in a heterosexual relationship -but now it’s open for debate.

Another word for debate is argument..

8. Money -Who earns the most?

If you earn five times what your partner does, should you split it evenly with them? And does it make a difference if the high earner is a man or a woman or, for that matter, non binary? Answers on a postcard, or, if you prefer, a letter bomb, addressed to me.

9. Relatives

Perhaps you like her sister - or his brother - a little too much and in the wrong way. Or perhaps your mother thinks he or she’s not good enough for you. Or perhaps her father is a dickhead but she has failed to realize it and thinks he’s Atticus Finch. The gap between your own perceptions of your family and your partner’s is usually considerable. Also, the way your parents relate will have provided you with a template, consciously or unconsciously, for the way you relate. Truth is,there’s no getting away from relatives, even when they’re hundreds of miles away. If you are in a ‘melded’ family, take all these difficulties and multiply them by ten.

10. Holidays. It’s the gap between hope and reality that is the killer. Holidays –like Christmas and birthdays –are petri dishes for disappointment, and disappointment leads to conflict. Because you look for someone to blame (see#5.) Also there is the concentration of social interaction-habits and annoying idiosyncrasies that are bearable, even endearing, during the course of a working week quickly turn toxic when you’re together 24/7.

A version of this essay was originally published in The Guardian.

You will be familiar with the phenomenon of ‘hallucinations’ - if you use AI, as I do frequently. That is to say, if Chat GPT doesn’t really know the answer to something it just makes shit up and announces it in as convincing a way as possible.

I guess AI and humans have this much in common. - although ‘they’ are much more intelligent than us carbon based life forms. They just hate to admit that they don’t know something.

I can understand very well why humans consistently do this. It’s because they actually don’t know anything very much and this makes them feel terribly worried and insecure, since everyone else is pretending to be certain about everything, and if you don’t know anything, you can’t predict what’s about to happen with any degree of certainty, or even know what just happened. Mysteries baffle the human brain, and since all is mystery, these brains are engaged in a constant fantastical battle to convince themselves that the knowledge they think they ‘hold’ - memories, predictions, meanings, facts - is valid. The more uncertain they - deep in their heart - are, the more fanatical they become about insisting that their knowledge is ‘true’.

Read more

A generous gift from a grateful recent mentoree, the novelist and writer Anna Pasternak

I can help you start - or finish - your novel or memoir. I have published 10 novels. My memoir is a Penguin Modern Classic, my first novel won a Whitbread Award. I have written YA, literary, fantasy and thriller.  I taught for the Faber Academy and Guardian Masterclasses. I coach writers of all levels from inception  to completion. I am empathetic and encouraging, but also committed to excellence.

Who Am I - And How Does It Work?

I have been a published author for more than 25 years. I've also worked as a TV producer, a journalist and a magazine editor.

My first book, 'The Scent of Dried Roses' won the PEN award for autobiography and is now a Penguin Modern Classic. My first novel, 'White City Blue' won the Whitbread Prize for best first novel. My second novel, ' Rumours of a Hurricane' was shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Whitbread Best Novel award. My Young Adult book, 'Fearless' was longlisted for the Guardian Children's Book award. My thriller novel, 'The Seymour Tapes' was purchased by Sony TV last year and is awaiting production.

My book on writing was published by Swift Press in 2023

.

I live in North West London and Kent, and I conduct my mentoring sessions either over Zoom or in person at my writing studio in North Kensington. I coach beginner writers, talented amateurs, professionals and anyone who stuck on their creative journey. My process is one of creative partnership rather than top-down teaching, that is to say, I also contribute imaginatively as much as I can to the writing project - not simply critique any submission I receive.


There are FIVE options for my mentoring services.

Option 1: 

One-to-one mentoring over the space of a year. An opportunity for authors of all levels to receive tailored advice over ten individual sessions for a period of up to 12 months. I will guide you through the entire process of drafting a novel from start to finish and provide invaluable advice on approaching agents and publishers. You will make ten submissions of up to 7,500 words for each submission.

Option 2: Manuscript appraisal. 

Give your book the best possible chance of being accepted by an agent. If you’ve completed the first draft of your novel, I will read your manuscript in depth and provided detailed personalised feedback. If it has reached a publishable standard, I will offer advice on how to get it into print. NB there is a surcharge for manuscripts of more than 80,000 words.

Option 3: One-to-one mentoring + Final Manuscript Appraisal. 

If you’re near the beginning of your journey as a novelist, this option will help you to find your feet and kickstart the challenging process of writing a work of fiction. For a time period of up to one year, I will read six writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them. Then, when you have finished the novel, I will read it and feed back to you in detail on your final draft. 

Option 4: Initial Manuscript appraisal + One-to-one mentoring. 

If you’ve begun writing your novel but require feedback and guidance in order to bring it to completion, this option will help you to continue your narrative and reach your goal of completing your novel. You will have written up to a half of your novel (max 40,000 words, or a surcharge of £100 per 10,000 words applies). Tim will provide feedback and direction on how to develop your novel further and reach completion. For a time period of up to one year, Tim will read – subsequent to reading and considering the first half of the novel – six further writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them.
Each feedback session includes a one-hour meeting (either in person or via Skype), during which your writing is discussed at length.

Option 5: Kickstarter. 

This option is ideal for those just wishing to get their first novel underway. Tim will give an initial in depth 90-minute meeting (either in person or via Zoom) to assess your novel idea, the problems you wish to address and your state of progress.
Over a six-month period, Tim will assess five submissions of up to 7,500 words each from you and give personal feedback in an hour-long meeting after each submission (either in person or via Skype).

My book on writing. ‘Yes!No! But Wait! The One Thing You Need To Know To Write A Novel’ was published in 2023 by Swift Press.

 Further Details Of My Mentoring Services Can Be Accessed Here

 You Can Read More About My Writing Career Here

How Much Does It Cost?

Option 1: £2750

Option 2: £1200

Option 3: £2,750

Option 4: £2,750

Option 5: £1, 900

 All fees payable in advance.

Testimonials About My Teaching

The mock-cover featured here was given to me as a gift last year by a previous Radio H-P mentoree, Anna Pasternak, who found my teaching invaluable. Anna has already published a number of best selling books, but sought my help with a new project.

“Shaping a novel chapter by chapter requires complex psychological insight. Tim Lott possesses that insight” - Robert McKee, author, ‘Story’.

“Tim Lott is one of the few novelists who truly understands story structure” - John Yorke, author, ‘Into the Woods’. 

“Tim Lott has long experience of the practice of writing fiction as well as a deep knowledge the theory of story craft – a rare yet essential combination“ - Will Storr, author, ‘The Science of Storytelling’.

Testimonials About My Writing

‘The Scent of Dried Roses’ - “Brilliant” Hilary Mantel “To read it is to be spellbound as by a gripping novel” Ruth Rendell.

‘Fearless’ – “Powerful, haunting and utterly original – an immediate classic" - Jacqueline Wilson

‘Rumours of a Hurricane’ – “The first great novel of the 21st Century” - Tony Parsons

Read more reviews of my books at timlott.com

How Can I Learn More?

If you want to talk to me about the working process, message me at timlott@me.com and we can arrange for a chat on Zoom or phone.

In the meantime, if you go to the link below, you can watch a video about my mentoring process.

Will You Help Me Find An Agent or Publisher?

If you complete the mentoring programme, I will consider forwarding your work/details to one of my agents - Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander (fiction) Ruth Cairns at Featherstone Cairns ( memoir ) or Caroline Walsh at David Higham Associates ( Young Adult). I only refer work I truly judge to be exceptional. However, in all cases I can advise on how to best present work to publishers and agents.

Quality Control

I receive a lot of applications for mentoring. However, not everyone feels the right fit for me. I need to be sure that the mentoree is committed to the process and that they possess a certain level of potential. I accept most applications for mentoring, but now and then I have to turn an applicant down, if I don't feel they are sufficiently developed as a writer. This is essential to make sure that I do not lead anyone by the nose. I don't believe in taking money from people who I feel sure are either not committed enough, or lack the basic skills, to learn the craft of writing. I pride myself on being honest and straightforward with people - many writing teachers happily flatter their clients in order to ensure their fees - but I am commited to teach with integrity and only for those who I feel can benefit from a creative partnership.

What If It Doesn't Work Out?

On Options 1 and 3, you have the chance to cancel your mentoring programme after the first session in which case you will receive a refund of 80 per cent. In all other cases, refunds are not offered except in the case of professional misconduct.

Finally...

Writing a book is a long and often difficult process, emotionally as well as technically. I am dedicated to supporting you in both areas. 

Whether or not you decide to investigate further, I wish you well in your journey to become a writer.

I never knew George Orwell was a connoisseur of junk, but this essay Shopping For Junk suggests otherwise. It also suggests that the love the British have of junk - not to confused , as Orwell says, with ‘antiques’ - was just as alive nearly a century ago as it is now.

I myself am a junk junkie. I love junk shops - or vintage, as they style themselves now, or ‘charity/thrift store’ if they have less pretensions. Much of the furniture I own comes from junk shops, as do a good percentage of my clothes. I just happen to love old stuff - it always strikes me as cheaper, more interesting and more individual than anything you can buy in IKEA, John Lewis or most clothes stores. And this love is nationwide, as Antiques Road Show demonstrates year after year.

But I also have to face the fact that the shopping is usually more rewarding than the buying. Because what is a junk/charity/vintage shop other than a social history museum you can - very occasionally - take stuff home from? The endless pointless gewgaws - horse brasses, walking sticks, endless patterned crockery, binoculars, reproductions of vintage film posters, old non- functional cameras, the list goes ever on - are just fascinating to browse among, even thought 99.99 per cent of them not ‘vintage’ at all, but simple rubbish. This is true in my rather conservative seaside home of Whitstable and equally true of the ( usually more expensive) vintage shops that line fashionable Brick Lane market, which I visited this week. It also holds for the endless second hand shops in New Orleans where my brother lives.

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I have been a story teacher much of my life. In the course of my career, I have come to understand how narrative not only entertains and inform the world of professional storytelling - novels, plays, TV etc - but is an inescapable part of being human. There is no escaping story, it plays out in your head 24/7. It’s the way in which was try and make sense of chaotic existence.

The trouble with the stories we tell ourselves, however, is that they are inevitably inaccurate and often entirely untrue. We have limited information and limited brain power. But the brain cannot help but believing the stories it comes up with in order to contain life, since it feels that without them, everything will fall apart.

I have been trying a mind experiment lately, which has , I think been partially - though not entirely - successful. That is, I have been trying to live without interior narrative. Which sounds like a crazy thing to attempt, except that it is in effect what the sages of the East prescribe for a peaceful life.

This, in effect, means not believing in my own thoughts. Instead, I try and stand back and see them as phenomena - like a sight or a sound. Just like sights and sounds, I did not create them - they just happen ( if you doubt it try and guess what your next thought is going to be.)

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There is much we fantasise about, or commit to, ‘giving’ our children ( if we have them) – education, fun, hope, morality, gadgets, self-discipline and much besides. We also hope for those qualities in ourselves. But perhaps what we above all want to impart (or should want to) are those elusive qualities self-esteem and self-respect. Closely aligned with the third Selfie, self-confidence, we try to boost our children’s vision of themselves with compliments and invocations. They are beautiful, they are clever, they are talented, they are special and so on. Does it work though?

There’s nothing wrong with praising your children, but they are just too smart to believe anything their parents tell them in this regard, imagining, rightly, that the praise of a parent is not reliable, when held against more independent agencies like friends, enemies, bosses, colleagues or the world at large. They accordingly discount these alleged virtues –all the more so, I don’t doubt, if the family they come from is poor or underprivileged, so they have the whole of society casting doubt on their worth.

I question that it is within one’s powers as a parent to instill the ‘good’ Selfies into a child. It is unquestionable that one can do much to destroy self-confidence, self-esteem etc., if one wants to, by constant criticism or putdowns (although even that can produce a countervailing, defiant ‘I’ll show you!’). But on the whole the good Selfie seems to be internally generated by rather mysterious forces. This sits at odds with conventional wisdom on this subject. I have heard very often that character depends on one of two axes –environment and heredity, which the exponents of each argue about the respective power of endlessly.

However, the third factor is more widely ignored. This is the sense that a child constructs a picture of the world for themselves, beyond the facts of heredity and environment. Certainly both may influence that picture –but finally there is an elusive element of choice involved. We build the vision of the world we choose –although as children we are usually too young to understand all the perspectives necessary to build it accurately. I don’t know what makes one child choose self-esteem over self-doubt –in fact I’m not even sure of what ‘self esteem’ comprises (perhaps because mine has always been rather low). . It’s a peculiar quality that seems often to be unconnected with any external reality. Sometimes stupid and unpleasant peoplecan be full of self-confidenceand self esteem, while often very sensitive, kind and smart children riddled with doubts about themselves.

Certainly upbringing appears to make a difference –the legendary self-confidence that private schooling imparts on its participants is some proof of that –but it isn’t everything. I’ve known many people from very modest backgrounds –my father for instance, who left school at 14–who had unimpeachable self-esteem. I know only this about the Selfies. They are not something you have or don’t have (although if you get into bad mental habits asa child, they can be hard to break). They are passing states. If you lose them you can get them back again. If you don’t have them, you can build them.

Perhaps the best we can do for our children is build a platform on which they can accept that self-esteem etc.is a possibility, but not a given. Whether that possibility is actualised depends partly on how much you are prepared to accept responsibility for yourself, what you’ve been taught, your private choices about how you view the world and your natural inclinations. Beyond that, it’s a secret debate that no one can finally determine the outcome of.

A version of this article was previously published in The Guardian

I have been listening to a very enjoyable BBC Podcast, ‘Everything’s Fake And Nobody Cares’. Presented by Jamie Bartlett it traces the recent history of our loosening grip on collective reality.

Bartlett ingeniously underscores his argument by creating an AI co-presenter, Jimmy Botlet, who has all the voice mannerisms, habits even attitudes of the human Bartlett. It is sometimes hard to tell who the voice and thoughts being broadcast belong to - a BBC presenter or a bundle of silicon.

All the six episodes are fascinating, but for me the last two are the killers. In episode 5, Jamie sits down with Dr Aseem Malhotra, the cardiologist who reaches millions through alternative media with his claims about the negative effects of Covid vaccines. In the final episode, Bartlett contrives to ‘interview’ a number of experts in the field of AI, who are eventually revealed themselves to be AI, specifically programmed to seem realistic to a Radio Four audience.

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It’s entertaining and also terrifying. There no longer seems to be any doubt that , as Bartlett suggests, the very foundations of perceived reality are being undermined - and it isn’t by accident. The rich and powerful have an investment in making the general population more and more doubtful about the existence of any solid truth, because a confused population is one that is easier to control and manipulate.

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A generous gift from a grateful recent mentoree, the novelist and writer Anna Pasternak

I can help you start - or finish - your novel or memoir. I have published 10 novels. My memoir is a Penguin Modern Classic, my first novel won a Whitbread Award. I have written YA, literary, fantasy and thriller.  I taught for the Faber Academy and Guardian Masterclasses. I coach writers of all levels from inception  to completion. I am empathetic and encouraging, but also committed to excellence.

Who Am I - And How Does It Work?

I have been a published author for more than 25 years. I've also worked as a TV producer, a journalist and a magazine editor.

My first book, 'The Scent of Dried Roses' won the PEN award for autobiography and is now a Penguin Modern Classic. My first novel, 'White City Blue' won the Whitbread Prize for best first novel. My second novel, ' Rumours of a Hurricane' was shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Whitbread Best Novel award. My Young Adult book, 'Fearless' was longlisted for the Guardian Children's Book award. My thriller novel, 'The Seymour Tapes' was purchased by Sony TV last year and is awaiting production.

My book on writing was published by Swift Press in 2023

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I live in North West London and Kent, and I conduct my mentoring sessions either over Zoom or in person at my writing studio in North Kensington. I coach beginner writers, talented amateurs, professionals and anyone who stuck on their creative journey. My process is one of creative partnership rather than top-down teaching, that is to say, I also contribute imaginatively as much as I can to the writing project - not simply critique any submission I receive.


There are FIVE options for my mentoring services.

Option 1: 

One-to-one mentoring over the space of a year. An opportunity for authors of all levels to receive tailored advice over ten individual sessions for a period of up to 12 months. I will guide you through the entire process of drafting a novel from start to finish and provide invaluable advice on approaching agents and publishers. You will make ten submissions of up to 7,500 words for each submission.

Option 2: Manuscript appraisal. 

Give your book the best possible chance of being accepted by an agent. If you’ve completed the first draft of your novel, I will read your manuscript in depth and provided detailed personalised feedback. If it has reached a publishable standard, I will offer advice on how to get it into print. NB there is a surcharge for manuscripts of more than 80,000 words.

Option 3: One-to-one mentoring + Final Manuscript Appraisal. 

If you’re near the beginning of your journey as a novelist, this option will help you to find your feet and kickstart the challenging process of writing a work of fiction. For a time period of up to one year, I will read six writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them. Then, when you have finished the novel, I will read it and feed back to you in detail on your final draft. 

Option 4: Initial Manuscript appraisal + One-to-one mentoring. 

If you’ve begun writing your novel but require feedback and guidance in order to bring it to completion, this option will help you to continue your narrative and reach your goal of completing your novel. You will have written up to a half of your novel (max 40,000 words, or a surcharge of £100 per 10,000 words applies). Tim will provide feedback and direction on how to develop your novel further and reach completion. For a time period of up to one year, Tim will read – subsequent to reading and considering the first half of the novel – six further writing submissions from you (up to 7,500 words each) and give written and verbal feedback on each of them.
Each feedback session includes a one-hour meeting (either in person or via Skype), during which your writing is discussed at length.

Option 5: Kickstarter. 

This option is ideal for those just wishing to get their first novel underway. Tim will give an initial in depth 90-minute meeting (either in person or via Zoom) to assess your novel idea, the problems you wish to address and your state of progress.
Over a six-month period, Tim will assess five submissions of up to 7,500 words each from you and give personal feedback in an hour-long meeting after each submission (either in person or via Skype).

Further Details Of My Mentoring Services Can Be Accessed Here

 You Can Read More About My Writing Career Here

How Much Does It Cost?

Option 1: £2750

Option 2: £1200

Option 3: £2,750

Option 4: £2,750

Option 5: £1, 900

 All fees payable in advance.

Testimonials About My Teaching

The mock-cover featured here was given to me as a gift last year by a previous Radio H-P mentoree, Anna Pasternak, who found my teaching invaluable. Anna has already published a number of best selling books, but sought my help with a new project.

“Shaping a novel chapter by chapter requires complex psychological insight. Tim Lott possesses that insight” - Robert McKee, author, ‘Story’.

“Tim Lott is one of the few novelists who truly understands story structure” - John Yorke, author, ‘Into the Woods’. 

“Tim Lott has long experience of the practice of writing fiction as well as a deep knowledge the theory of story craft – a rare yet essential combination“ - Will Storr, author, ‘The Science of Storytelling’.

Testimonials About My Writing

‘The Scent of Dried Roses’ - “Brilliant” Hilary Mantel “To read it is to be spellbound as by a gripping novel” Ruth Rendell.

‘Fearless’ – “Powerful, haunting and utterly original – an immediate classic" - Jacqueline Wilson

‘Rumours of a Hurricane’ – “The first great novel of the 21st Century” - Tony Parsons

Read more reviews of my books at timlott.com

How Can I Learn More?

If you want to talk to me about the working process, message me at timlott@me.com and we can arrange for a chat on Zoom or phone.

In the meantime, if you go to the link below, you can watch a video about my mentoring process.

Will You Help Me Find An Agent or Publisher?

If you complete the mentoring programme, I will consider forwarding your work/details to one of my agents - Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander (fiction) Ruth Cairns at Featherstone Cairns ( memoir ) or Caroline Walsh at David Higham Associates ( Young Adult). I only refer work I truly judge to be exceptional. However, in all cases I can advise on how to best present work to publishers and agents.

Quality Control

I receive a lot of applications for mentoring. However, not everyone feels the right fit for me. I need to be sure that the mentoree is committed to the process and that they possess a certain level of potential. I accept most applications for mentoring, but now and then I have to turn an applicant down, if I don't feel they are sufficiently developed as a writer. This is essential to make sure that I do not lead anyone by the nose. I don't believe in taking money from people who I feel sure are either not committed enough, or lack the basic skills, to learn the craft of writing. I pride myself on being honest and straightforward with people - many writing teachers happily flatter their clients in order to ensure their fees - but I am commited to teach with integrity and only for those who I feel can benefit from a creative partnership.

What If It Doesn't Work Out?

On Options 1 and 3, you have the chance to cancel your mentoring programme after the first session in which case you will receive a refund of 80 per cent. In all other cases, refunds are not offered except in the case of professional misconduct.

Finally...

Writing a book is a long and often difficult process, emotionally as well as technically. I am dedicated to supporting you in both areas. 

Whether or not you decide to investigate further, I wish you well in your journey to become a writer.

As a young man, I had an unusual desire mixed up with all the usual ones - sex, money, success, approbation and so on. This desire knocked around at the back of my mind , occasionally coming nervously to the front, where , disoriented by the exposure, it retreated into the shadows again.

The desire was for wisdom. I wasn’t sure what wisdom actually was, or how to come by it, but it seemed crucial to living a successful life. It was different from intelligence, I was sure of that, because there were so many clever people around, many of them politicians or right wing columnists in the daily newspapers, who were simultaneously stupid.

There were very few people I considered ‘wise’ existing in the media universe, so I looked to literature for this elusive beast, often finding insights scattered around a particular novel or book of psychology or mythology.

It gradually dawned on me, however, that wisdom was not something you ‘possessed’ like a house or a car. After years of searching for ‘it’ one thing was clear - if such a thing as wisdom existed, it came and went like all the other phenomena around me. Often, despite what I considered my small and valuable store of accumulated wisdom, I acted contrary to its precepts. ‘It’ was ephemeral and unreliable and sometimes disappeared altogether.

For most of human history, wisdom was the preserve of organised religion which passed on so-called insights, usually moral, to the common man via sermons and rituals. But in the era I came to age in, secularism was then, as now, the primary world view of the average man or woman. We were left to work out for ourselves what ‘it was all about’ and how one should behave. We were thus, as it seemed to me, at the mercy of our cultural circumstances, which were more or less random.

Most people seemed untroubled by this conundrum, concentrating instead on whatever it took to get through the day to accumulate wealth, love and security, but I couldn’t let it go. I ploughed through the Greek philosophers, flirted with mysticism, had a go at existentialism , tried to get a grip on Jung, sunk into Zen Buddhism, and read every psychology book I could get my hands on. But at the end of it all - if there is an end to it all, which there isn’t - if you asked me what my wisdom amounted to today, I would struggle to tell you.

If you insisted I continue nonetheless, I might say that wisdom was not the same as happiness - which originally, I thought it was a means of attaining. No one escapes unhappiness in life, however wise - and often, unreflective people are the most cheerful. Or as Thomas Gray would have it, ‘if ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise’.

Pressed further, and asked to compress my lifelong wisdom into a few digestible nuggets, I might find myself imprudently reeling off a small list of seemingly unrelated saws (which would probably be different tomorrow or the day after). . These might include: Love the truth but be careful about speaking it because people prefer comforting lies; be humble about your opinions they are probably wrong; it costs nothing to be kind - and, despite that, people can be crueller than you might expect; consequences are always unpredictable, for good or ill; doing your best doesn’t guarantee success (you need to come to terms with that); and all is change and transformation, however fixed and immutable the world appears.

I could, I suppose, go on, but life goes on in its own way whatever you happen to think about it. Perhaps this is the most profound piece of wisdom I can locate - that things are finally out of your control, whatever you want to believe. Even your very thoughts are not in your control - they just happen to you, like every other event. My early belief in existentialism, or radical individual freedom, has been reversed. I am , at the end of my journey, a reluctant fatalist.

My struggle to find wisdom has culminated, if that is the word, in those few brief principles, if principles they are. And it was a struggle to get that far. But what a struggle! Nothing in life has given me more pleasure than to find a new idea, or group of ideas, that sets my mind to work and fires my imagination. Now I am 70 years old such fresh ideas are thin on the ground, but I hope that, before I complete my time on earth, I will still stumble upon one or two that will challenge me or make me think my world anew. For as a final snippet of wisdom, I can only add this old (but true) chestnut - it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.

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Unknown Family photo from 1875

When we talk of ‘family’ it is customary in our culture to be talking exclusively about people who are alive. However, in this we may be the exception rather than the rule. Many cultures practice ancestor worship, and still more give a great deal of time honouring the departed members of their kin. But we burn them, bury them and forget them pretty quickly in comparison.

My mind took this turn after I visited the grave of my father who died more than a decade ago. My father would have been indifferent to this visit such an English pragmatist was he (‘when you’re dead you’re dead’ was his philosophy of mortality), but I found contemplating the rugged rectangle of slate that marked the hole into which I had helped lower him oddly satisfying. I could not say wherein that satisfaction lay. I knew that six foot under that spot was just a sprinkling of bones that had nothing to do with the living spirit I had known. And yet visit, I did, and pay tribute, I did, with a handful of wild flowers.

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One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to when you get older, as I appear to have done, is the fact that life becomes a bit purposeless. Hence so many people simply ‘potter about’ , rather than having any life goals.

For many (including myself) this shift from a so called purposeful life to one lacking any particular goal, is uncomfortable. In West we are very concerned that things should make sense and have a certain direction in which to travel. But in traditional Eastern philosophy, the words ‘purposeless’ and ‘meaningless’ are joyous and positive. In Hindu thought, the central idea is that creation is of God at play, lila.

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Ever since I can remember , I have wanted to know. To know what? Everything. My curiosity was boundless. It drove me every day. I was restlessly looking for answers to questions I could barely articulate.

Now, many years later, I realise that there are no answers and that there are no questions either. When I listen to the endless gabble on the radio, one talking head blabbing at and usually opposing another talking head, I think how pointless it all is. Alan Watts once said that philosophical and political discussions in the west were like two bald men arguing over a comb. It’s just heat and air expended pointlessly about nothing, a screen concealing ignorance.

Of course the mind needs to attend to practical matters. That’s what it’s there for. But we have become so exclusively left-brained in our thinking ( the left hemisphere being the one that deals with analysis and separation rather than the right brain, which deals with connection) that our arguments have become sterile, especially when the wander, as they often do, into moral or abstract questions. It is our great vanity since the Enlightenment that we believe we will find that answer to those fundamental questions - of justice, of meaning, of truth etc. Even though after thousands of years of trying we have failed and always will fail.

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Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo at the BAFTAs.

I was leaving Euston station yesterday, and was about to walk past an elderly woman sitting with a scrawled sign in front of her begging for money. Then some lout shouted ‘lazy cunt’ at her, so I stopped and put some change in her bowl and apologised on behalf of the moron. At no point did she show any reaction, either to me or to the lout.

I carried on walking to cross the Euston road to visit the Wellcome Collection one of my favourite haunts. There, just before the entrance was an even older lady, with what appeared to be an identical sign in front of her. - same words, same style of writing, same cardboard backing I realised then that the two women were part of some kind of begging franchise, possibly sent out on the street by criminal gangs.

Emotionally, I wasn’t sure how to respond. There was something in the idea of chain begging that I found morally questionable. On the other hand, neither of the poor women were having a great day, and it was beginning to rain. I ended up with an mixture of indignation towards the gangs that were hypothetically running the women, and sympathy towards the women themselves.

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I have finally returned to my London home after a blissful month in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. I was ready to return - once you get into March the heat there can become unbearable. But this lengthy sojourn has revealed the stark contrast between my home city and this part of Southern India.

Many of these contrasts are very obvious. London is much richer - and more expensive. It is far more multicultural. And it is wetter. And colder. And, I suppose, more ‘sophisticated’ if you measure sophistication by the number of art galleries, theatres and concert halls.

But for me the most striking difference between the cultures was one that was plain to see in some ways, but hard to express. This part of India, like many of its spiritual centres, is a reverent culture. Prayer and worship and devotion penetrate each and every family. Go to any ashram or temple, and it will be bursting with ordinary Indians of all ages paying tribute to a god or a holy man ( in. Tiru it is the great sage Ramana Maharshi).

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