The window is open, but only just: I want to know that it’s day outside, but I don’t want it in here. The coffee machine is gargling meaninglessly in the corner, like some aged grandparent trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle of memories. I have turned off my e-mail and my mobile phone is on silent. And there’s a cup of coffee on the right hand side of the monitor. It is clouding up a delicate steam, like a burning offering in front of some ancient effigy. I will probably forget to drink it while it’s hot. But I know it’s there, it knows I’m here, and everything is all right with the world. I can start writing now.

One question which writers always get asked is: How do you write? (the other is: what or who inspires you?) The first interpretation of that question is that it’s a polite clearing of the throat, a question you ask when you don’t have anything else to ask. But I think writers hate it. Because underneath its tweed and bow tie politeness is a nosy and invasive curiosity.

Yes, all writers have a writing routine: it’s the routine that helps them write. But it’s personal. When writers are tapping away at their stained keyboard, they don’t want anyone else in the room, including themselves.

But beyond the routine, what else do you need to write a good book?

Someone once said that everybody has a book inside them. That’s like saying that everyone can fly a Boeing 747, except that they haven’t tried it yet. No, not everyone carries the seeds of a book inside him.

And if that were the case, the seeds had better die before they sprout into a clichéd 300-pager with dead metaphors, flat characters and a predictable plot which gives no returns to a reader’s dog-eared investment. It’s like opinions, everyone might have one, but some had better be left unvoiced. There is a moral in all this: don’t assume that just because you read, you can write.

Apart from talent, what you need to write a good book is time. Not just to write. You need time to stare at and beyond things, to wait for words and then chase after them like a rogue bus, to sleep, perchance to dream. Because the romanticised view of a writer falling into some sort of trance and being taken over by events, plots and characters is just that: a romanticised, hollow lie.

You need time to stare at and beyond things, to wait for words and then chase after them like a rogue bus, to sleep, perchance to dream

A book doesn’t write itself. A writer is not a medium, a bridge between the inner world of ideas and the outer world of pen and paper. Some writers may want to aggrandise the act of writing to a noble, effortless pursuit, untainted by the dirt of something as worldly as work. And that’s true: great writing can be magnificent. However, writing is also work, it is plenty of toil and trouble. Writing is a dirty, ink-stained effort. You don’t start writing and whole sentences and paragraphs just flow beautifully. Rather, to create meaning, you have to research, plot and sketch. Then you write. And after that, you revise and rewrite. Then drag everything to the trash and start again.

So, let’s tick the boxes. A routine: you have one. Talent: let’s assume you do. Time: well, it’s summer, so you will have more time to dedicate to writing your book. And most of your time will be of the quiet variety; the kind that will allow you to forget that the world is rotating.

The neighbours are either enjoying the contradiction of a long siesta or are sizzling their skin on the beach. The heat is muffling the sounds of the world outside.

The window is open, but only just. The coffee machine is gargling meaninglessly in the corner. You can start writing now.

A good read: summer in the title

Summer Crossing
Truman Capote

Published in 2005, Summer Crossing was actually the first novel that Truman Capote started writing. He eventually moved on to Other Voices, Other Rooms and set aside the manuscript of Summer Crossing. In 1949, he wrote to his publisher to inform him that he had started on Summer Crossing again and that he would finish the first draft by the end of the year. However, Robert Linscott, Capote’s senior editor at Random House, was unimpressed with the first draft of Summer Crossing.

It was claimed that Capote destroyed the manuscript. However, his house sitter had rescued a number of writings, including Summer Crossing, which was eventually bought by the New York Public Library and published.

One Summer
Bill Bryson

It is the summer of 1927 and America’s stock market is booming, Al Capone’s reign of terror is reaching a bloody peak, Ruth Snyder’s murder trial is turning into a media sensation, a flood in Mississippi has devastating consequences, Charles Lindbergh would soon change the world and an ageing baseball player, Babe Ruth, is about to make an improbable return to greatness.

In One Summer, Bill Bryson travels back in time to tell of one year that would change the ones that came after.

A Death in Summer
Benjamin Black

In his fourth Quirke mystery, John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, sets the scene in 1950s Dublin.

The reader follows Doctor Quirke and Inspector Hackett as they investigate the murder of newspaper magnate Richard Jewell.

Suspicions fall on Jewell’s beautiful wife, Francoise, and her sister Dannie. It’s summer with a deadly twist.