Where do Fiction Authors Write?

I admire Hemingway's writing and his iceberg principle. I know he hung out in a bar in Havana and I would have loved to meet him for a quiet chat. I have heard that he wrote standing up. Now that's kind of weird, but whether you are standing up, sitting or lying down, writing is hardly exciting to watch. Reader I will readily agree with you: observing someone write is undeniably boring. What's important is the process in the author's head and what's even more important is his work. Where this process takes place is immaterial. Still, it is one of the questions that have plagued me since adolescence.

Why is it important to me? Do I want to have a mental picture? Do I desire to mimic? Or is it something beyond that? The bottom line is I don't care why it's important to me, so why would you? What's interesting is that this meaningless question, or its answer has been associated with most authors I know. I was on a bus tour of Edinburgh the other day and as I was staring out the window our tour guide pointed out a tea and coffee shop called The Elephant House. Now what exciting thing could have happened there, in the midst of historic Edinburgh? A meeting of great politicians or the planning of a revolution? “That's where J K Rawling wrote her first Harry Potter book,” said the mechanical voice. You see? My curiosity is hardly unique.

Eric Ambler: From Pulp to Literature

Eric Ambler (1909-1998) is not only “unquestionably our best thriller writer”, as Graham Greene said, but also the master of the modern thriller when it involves international intrigue and espionage. Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene ran the course on the sidelines but Ambler ploughed head on. Within a few years he not only bridged the gap between serious literature and the pulp thrillers of John Buchan and Sapper but significantly overlapped it.

He was born in London, studied Engineering at London University but settled on a career as an advertising copywriter. He travelled extensively in Europe and became a full-time writer in 1937. Between 1936 and 1940 he wrote six critically acclaimed novels of intrigue which took the thriller from pulp to literature. He served in the British army (1940-46) as a film-maker with the likes of Peter Ustinov and John Huston. After the war he wrote screenplays for various films including The Passionate Friends, The Cruel Sea, A Night to Remember, The Wreck of the Mary Deare and Mutiny on the Bounty (uncredited). He married Joan Harrison, Alfred Hitchcock's screenwriter, and created an American TV show of his own: Checkmate. He also wrote twelve more highly acclaimed novels (most of which were filmed as movies or mini TV series) and five more in collaboration with Charles Rodda. He won countless literary awards including four Gold Daggers and an Edgar.