A quick Q&A with the presenter of our new online course

Meet Simon Petherick, ghostwriter and tutor of the upcoming Idler Academy online course How to Write Your Life Story. Simon’s course will be published on Tuesday 15 November.

Tell us about your new course in a few words.

SIMON PETHERICK: How to Write Your Life Story is a practical and motivational online course to give you both the confidence and the tools to write the story of your life.

What sort of idlers do you recommend take this course?

SP: Every idler should consider writing their life story. It’s a wonderful exercise in creativity, memory and collaboration. It will help you to put elements of your life in perspective and it will enable those around you – family, friends, readers – to learn more about you and your place in the world.

In your previous online course with the Idler Academy, Self-Publish Your Book with Simon Petherick, you taught idlers how to publish their own books independently, something that is very connected to the upcoming course. What drives your interest in this area of writing and publishing?

SP: The commercial publishing industry has contracted over the years as it continues to focus more and more on celebrities and media tie-ins. There’s much less opportunity for new and/or unknown writers to find a commercial publisher willing to take them on. Simultaneously, technological changes in the print and typography sectors have made book production much more accessible to the ordinary person, as long as they’re prepared to take the time to learn the essential principles. Artists from William Blake onwards have revelled in the creative process of self-publishing and, if conducted with authenticity and passion, it can result in beautifully printed volumes.

At the beginning of the first lockdown in 2020, you published an article on the Idler blog, “Ten Tips for the Idle Writer”. Now that we’ve returned to a more normal rhythm of life, what would be your most important advice for someone who wants to start writing?

SP: The best advice I can offer actually comes from John Cleese, who once recommended that aspiring writers should create “boundaries of space and boundaries of time”. What he meant by this was that you should find somewhere physically where you will not be disturbed (by doorbells, children, spouses, friends or social media) and you should allocate a fixed period to sit in that space every day – start, say, with dedicating yourself to spend 30 minutes of every lunchtime with a pen and an exercise book sitting on a park bench, or give yourself an hour at home in front of the computer every morning before everyone else gets up. It’s a discipline that your creative mind will reward very quickly.

Following on from the idea of fitting writing into modern life, you talk in the new course about “finding your own voice” away from the disruptions of the computer keyboard. Do you personally find it benefits you to write with pen and paper? Do you have a schedule that includes your notebook when you’re working on a new project?

SP: It can often be useful to step away from the machinery – whether it’s a computer keyboard or a smartphone keypad – which you use every day to write emails and social media witticisms. You’ll find it more challenging to write using a different medium and this hopefully will encourage you to think harder about the language and words you are electing to use. We have all in recent years developed “online voices” and in very many cases they’re not quite as authentic as we’d like to imagine.

In your research, what’s the most interesting published life-story you’ve come across?

SP: Most recently? Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson. All time? Probably all the books by Primo Levi.

And your top book to recommend to all keen life-story writers looking for inspiration?

SP: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings takes some beating and will show you what can be done.

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