A treasury of wisdom about the writing life

In the penultimate entry of Toby Litt’s A Writer’s Diary, an autofictional daily record of a writer named Toby Litt (which first appeared from Substack), he admits he began the project wanting to write ‘the best book that has ever been written about writing – about the physical act of writing, and the metaphysical act’. He may not have succeeded (Norman Mailer’s The Spooky Art might fit this description), but substitute the word ‘living’ for ‘writing’ and he might be closer to an apt summary. It’s an extraordinary record of life’s minutiae, oscillating from the trivial to the transcendent, often on the same page.

Which isn’t to say the book doesn’t contain a treasury of wisdom about the writing life. Beginning in the January of an unnamed year (Sonntag 1 January), the German diary, a gift from his partner Leigh, reveals that Litt is about to become a father, while his mother is dying of cancer. These two life-changing events, keenly anticipated and dreaded, are the twin plot motors that underwrite the epic digressions on fountain pens, desks and teaching an MA in Creative Writing. There are riffs on his desk that’s nota desk; the welcome and unwelcome interruptions from his cat (named Mouse); the motivational quote from Mandelstam pinned to a corkboard; and the child’s plastic rhino he keeps for inspiration: ‘The qualities of the rhinoceros are the qualities you need in order to write a novel. Physical robustness, four feet on the ground, eyes straight ahead, the horn.’

There is also much lamentation about his place in the literary pecking order. ‘Since being dropped by my major label, and going indie’, he agonises over whether he’s ever written trash or ‘stolen air’. The verdict of posterity looms large: ‘Writing is extremely easy; it’s writing anything that’s anything that kills.’