How I Write - James Knight

For however long I have at least two fingers capable of ‘slam-typing', and a hunger for knowledge, I will always want to paint words across pages. In an age where too much emphasis is placed on celebrities – do we really need to know if a Hollywood star has cellulite or a news presenter was seen drinking a latte in Bondi? – I find the most wonderful stories come from everyday people: the taxi driver whose first shift was on Valentine's Day 40-odd years ago; the Nepalese student working at a supermarket check-out; the stockman driving his cattle on the long paddock – people we come across in our lives but whom we rarely stop to chat with.

The most important tools of my trade are: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? I thrive on using these words with everyday people. From these come answers: some are bland, but others lure me along paths that take me into ways of life I know nothing about. And that is why I write: because I want people to know about these ways. I'm a firm believer there is not a single person on this planet we can't learn from.

And so, I settle into my ‘bunker' (an office with too many books, scraps of paper strewn across the desk, a splintered dog bone or two, and French door windows that look out on honeyeaters teetering on wispy Grevilleas), and I go to work. On some days I write well, ticking over the hours and the pages with ease, but there are also the times when I lose hair I can't afford to do away with.

I write books and I run marathons. To me, there is a strong link between the two: whether I am bleeding over the keyboard at 2am, or pounding the bitumen during a three-hour training run on a cold, wet Sunday morning, I often ask myself ‘Why the hell am I doing this?' But then I open a box and hold my new book for the first time, or I cross the finish line, and I allow myself a moment of self-indulgence: Yes, well done, all the hard work was worth it.

May the paragraphs and kilometres never end.

A Theory of Moments by James Knight is out now through Hachette, RRP$35.

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