A Writer's Diary

by Toby Litt

A WRITER’S DIARY IS A NOVEL THAT BLENDS FACT AND FICTION, invention and memoir with joyful creativity and remarkable literary ambition. In it, Toby Litt takes on some of the biggest questions of life and death, not to mention literary as well as human mortality and the steady march of time.

At first, A Writer's Diary appears to be exactly what it claims to be. It is a daily summary of the events in a person called Toby Litt's life: his thoughts on creating literature, his concerns for his family and the people he teaches, his musings on the various things that catch his attention around his desk and his immediate surroundings...

But as it progresses, questions start to arise. Is this fact? Or is it fiction? (And if it's both, which is which?) Is this a book about quotidian daily routines - one person's days as they unspool - or is something more going on? Is there something even larger taking shape? … And so, seemingly by magic, an increasingly urgent narrative starts to build - and A Writer's Diary becomes a compulsive page-turner, full of stories, full of characters we have grown to love – and full of questions we need answered. Will Toby find the perfect pencil sharpener? Will everyone he loves make it through the year? And will he be the same person at the end of it?

400 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

Toby Litt was born in Bedfordshire, England. He studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia where he was taught by Malcolm Bradbury, winning the 1995 Curtis Brown Fellowship.

He lived in Prague from 1990 to 1993 and published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled Adventures in Capitalism, in 1996.

In 2003 Toby Litt was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'.

In 2018, he published Wrestliana, his memoir about wrestling, writing, losing and being a man.

His novel, A Writer's Diary, was published by Galley Beggar Press on January 1st 2022.

A Writer's Diary continues daily on Substack.

He lives in London and is the Head of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton.

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s like Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle meets Virginia Woolf’s Diary
...
It’s for writers, and people who want to know what writers are really like.
...
Please be aware that the events taking place in the diary are not necessarily taking place in my life right now, although almost all of them have taken place at some time.

Toby Litt's "A Writer's Diary" was published as daily entries during 2022 on Substack.

Although the 'Diary' was already essentially written before 2022 began, as Litt explained in early January in a discussion page on his blog, in response to a reader query:

I’d like readers, if they want to, to take the Diary as a day-by-day involvement in someone’s life. But I don’t want them to feel conned or deceived, so I’m being open about the fact that – yes – there are Diary entries written for every day between now and December 31st. A very few other people have read what exists of the Diary, or have heard me read out a later entry. But I am rewriting every day as it comes along, and I’m also thinking ahead – considering some bigger changes. So, yes, you’ve got that absolutely right. The first entries were written around four years ago; the bulk of the writing was done in 2021.

This novel* was then published on 1 January 2023 by the wonderful small-independent press Galley Beggar, who have previously published Litt's novel Patience (2019) and the memoir Wrestliana (2018). The editing of the Diary for publication formed part of the "rewriting" in 2022 Litt refers to, so that the published book is very close to the Substack entries. Indeed the most notable change has been, at Sam at Galley Beggar's suggestion, to move the days of the week of each entry to be consistent with 2023 so that e.g. 1 January is now a Sunday.

Interestingly during 2023 Litt is continuing to publish entries on his Substack but these now relate to the events of 2022 as he published the daily instalments of the original Writer's Diary, including his interactions with his publisher.

* I say "novel" because it has been published this way - from the Jan 6 entry in 2023 I suggested non-fiction, Sam came back with novel; I agreed to that. It’s what Leigh has been calling it. Carapace-word - and because while many of the events are based on the author Litt's life, I think a lot took place over a couple of years some time (up to a decade?) pre 2021/22 (almost all the events I write about happened; most of them didn’t happen on these particular days), and the Toby Litt of the novel is best regarded as a separate and different character.

It also makes for a slightly artificial and odd read presented as a diary - indeed while when published as daily instalments someone could perhaps have taken it as "day-by-day involvement in someone’s life", this is rather harder in novel format and when (as per above) the days of the week tie up with 2023 (although the year isn't mentioned, so it could be 2017) meaning, read close to publication, the entries are set in the future.

Some of the entries state a little too much that it is likely no one else will read this Dairy, or include blank pages as the 'Toby Litt' character in the Diary was busy, and yet other entries are essays that carry on over several days. And it is designed to be fairly timeless, with e.g. no mention of Covid. Politics, other than references to the climate emergency (Litt is a member of XR Writers Rebel) are deliberately absent, and while it is perhaps conceivable someone would write a diary of 2022 without mention of Ukraine, the death of the Queen and the year of 3 PMs (or in any year, without mentioning the key events of that year), it's unlikely a climate activist wouldn't mention the hottest day ever in the UK (or the father of a new-born not worry about NHS pressures and the soaring cost of heating).

Which does make me wonder if this would have been better as a "Writer's Notebook" without the need to force it into a Diary format.

Ultimately this is a primarily a book about writers and writing, and Litt both teaches Creative Writing and researches on literature at Birbeck University. As per the opening quote Litt has said that when asked to describe the work in progress his standard response was It’s like Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle meets Virginia Woolf’s Diary and this a good description. Indeed the early entries - this Jan 15th - aim for, and achieve, Knausgårdian banality ('Desk' was another working title):

How about a desk diary? What if I keep this really close? It’s going that way anyway. A diary of the desk. In this place, a coffee spill is a major event. If we moved house, I would take a photo – many photos – and put the objects back where they were, here, at a new location, in a different workroom. (That’s unlikely to happen for years; we can’t afford it.) Why a photo? It’s not like I don’t know where they go: the rhinoceros, the Mercedes; the pen pot (white ceramic F H FAULDING & CO LTD GOLDEN EYE OINTMENT), the pencil pot (shining stainless steel). Overall, the Anglepoise. Uncle Anglepoise, PAT IN UK AND ABROAD. Never thought of it as Uncle before. I will stop, because these things are of no interest to anyone but me. (I will continue, because what is this diary for if not things of no interest to anyone but me?)

And the entry on January 17th sets out who the Diary is really aimed at:

There are lots of people who want to be writers, and even more who want to know what it’s like to be a writer. More still are interested in – fascinated by – the inspiration (old-fashioned) and misbehaviour (my art demands I sleep with her as well as you) and bosslessness (forgetting agent and editor) and funky workspace (in some magazine shoot) than are interested in, or give a fuck about, yet another novel. Another novel, however good, is just another novel. Give us the honest interview about how the novel was written, and how little of it was made up.

There is also a lot about the class of creative writing students Litt teaches, and their different styles as both writers and people before they are rather forgotten (‘Give yourself a sabbatical.’ This offered as Sam’s solution to the students disappearing mid-year. from the January 2023 Substack).

I must admit I struggled with some of these sections, as I'm not one of those people mentioned in the Jan 17th article, and some of the writings on writing get a little academically obtuse. But as the novel progresses the story switches more to one of life and death: the birth of the Diarist's son after he and his partner had suffered a number of miscarriages; and the gradual death, from cancer, of his mother. The diary doesn't really have anything original to say about nappy changing, sleepless nights or breast feeding, so the baby sections rather reproduce the Knausgårdian banality of A Man in Love (although Toby Litt the character is a less selfish father than Karl Ove), but the interest lies in the diarist's struggles with the ethics of parent hood in a human-induced climate emergency. The sections with the diarist's mother however are more powerful and moving, including a scene, to which the diarist keeps returning, and Litt had wondered whether to cut from the novel, of her final death rattle.

Overall, I had mixed views on this. I got bogged down and came close to abandoning the book around the early May section, but it eventually held my interest until 31 December, and it's a positive sign that, for now at least, I've signed up to the 2023 Substack. So 3 stars

[Lulufrances · Rating 3 out of 5]

It‘s mean to fault a diary for being self-indulgent, so I won‘t go on about that. What I did notice is how far away I am from this kind of male perspective and writing, not neccessarily something I‘m mad about, either.
But Toby Litt really knows how to write and construct sentences with a wonderful rhythm, have to hand him that - despite some parts I could have done without.
Maybe next time less deep musings on Keats over several weeks and more day to day descriptions - then again who am I to say what he can write about in his diary. I just don‘t care about Keats an awful lot, soz.

I liked his little quirk about being selfconscious about starting too many sentences with „I“ - actually same here - the acrobatics I do in my journal to avoid it are something else…

A year in the life of a stranger, containing so much grief, death but also hope and new life - so, so human.

Note to self: I love descriptive diaries and not philosophical ones filled with random stuff I don‘t care about (dust motes and the way ink falls on a page, in detail, being among that) unless it‘s the diary of someone I personally know/love.

[Deborah Siddoway · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book (diary) that I kept changing my mind about. It didn't help that I was simultaneously reading Alan Rickman's diaries, which are far more of a chronicle of what he was doing, and the people he was spending his time with, rather than any sort of real or challenging reflective consideration of why he was doing things, or, more importantly, how he was feeling about it. The contrast of the two diaries was in many ways one of the most interesting aspects of reading Litt's as it caused me to think about the nature of diary writing itself - why we do it, the existential challenges it can present, the way in which it can be used to process emotions and events, distil them down into mere words to record a moment in time that is insignificant to so many, but of utmost significance to the one who experiences it - the diarist/writer. In many ways, thinking about the purpose of maintaining a diary - the discipline it requires to write something (anything) to fill the blank space of a page was one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading this book.

Focusing on this Writer's Diary, the real interest for me was in the underlying tension built into the entries from the waiting - waiting for the much desired and anticipated birth of a child after pregnancy losses, while also waiting - and dreading - the expected death of a much-loved parent. This is where the heart of the diary was, and one of the reasons driving me to continue reading it. Much of the diary, however, meandered, and seemed driftless and purposeless. Reading was sometimes hard work, particularly where the reader is forced to wade through entries of experimental writing where it really felt like the author was just trying too hard. At times, I became frustrated with it (in my impatient exasperation with some of the entries, I labelled them as self-indulgent twaddle).

The blending of fact and fiction is also something I found deeply troubling as I read it. There are clearly issues around privacy of those he wrote about. One wonders how his wife, his father, his brother, for example, felt about having part of their lives laid naked on the page, let alone the courage it takes for an author to expose their own emotions to the scrutiny of readers such as myself, who just kept asking why....

The long and short of it, is that I just don't know what to make of this book. Over to you, fellow readers, to enlighten me further.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“How do you know the voice of doubt isn’t bang on? You don’t.” Toby Litt’s A Writer’s Diary is a novel that interpolates fact and memoir into its fiction (or perhaps fiction into its fact), and in doing so creates a metafictional portrayal of a year in the life. With daily entries spanning the whole of one calendar year — in which nothing much happens to the narrator, a recognisable Toby Litt, and yet so much happens that his life in December is unrecognisable from his life in January — Litt crafts a narrative that constantly analyses itself, existential and philosophical and literary. The last third of the novel contrasts a deep grief, over the loss of a parent, with the strange stressful joy of new parenthood, with “His eloquently unmeaning gestures. If there’s nothing new under the sun, write moonlit.” “It’s not as if there’s always a subject. Sometimes there’s just grief and routine alongside ambition and curiosity.” And throughout, the focuses are searching, resonant: “Ah, such a vast tiny relief.” “If there is time, there is not nothing, if there is no time, there is no time.” “Is unloved life, in the earliest moments, still a good?” “I’ve never been all that good at living”. “All these stories I know I will never write.” Yet all of this is undercut with self-deprecating wit and knowing: “If I were less angry, I would be less stupid.” “I would say to myself, ‘Happiness or greatness?’ The correct answer was greatness. I soon enough became great at being unhappy.” “I wish I didn’t start so many sentences with I.” Litt’s questioning of the world endures: “Is it important that you don't consciously understand what you're writing at the moment you write it?” Answers matter less.

[Erica Basnicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read around this book, beyond it and about it, to fully appreciate it. It’s not a stellar read on its own. As a single unit, 3 stars. As a writer, I found that the book as a single unit is excruciatingly relatable in many places. The insecurity, the moments of inflated ego, playing with words etc. Some entires annoyed me to no end because no one should need to consult a dictionary quite so often while reading. I’m a fan of plain language, but I am also more of a copywriter than a (nose in air) “auteur of literature” (darling).

But I also have an inner literary snob, and I get it, and I get that this is an experiment rather than a fleshed out story and I appreciate the experiment. This is the part that I had to read around/about to figure that out - a quick Google - because there’s no real clue on the book jacket copy. The book jacket copy is crap. It doesn’t really set up the reader properly.

So I’ve added a half star for the experiment, and another half star for a somewhat ridiculous reason: had I not read A Writer’s Diary, I may have never read “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats, which has completely bowled me over. A real stunner. Gorgeous. Oof. So thank you, Toby Litt, for that introduction. Your diary is a bit bonkers, but I’m very glad I read it.

[Amanda Rosso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating this book is really difficult: it's intelligent, cultured, wise and brilliant, dry in a non-melodramatic way but piercing exact in what it's meant to do.

I thoroughly enjoyed all the digressions, the literary and stationary-related ones. The personal and more memoiristic aspect of the diary is well balanced and insightful in many ways.

However, it is irksome at points, and many passages that really enraged me. It just feels really awkward for a person living in the present world to have a diary that seems to be entirely separated from reality, from what happens outside. I'm not expecting to be constantly blabbering about world affairs and international politics, but it's also somehow a sign of an uncanny privilege - of which the authors seems conscious but in a sort on disengaged way - his being able to literally leave the world outside, like nothing of it really matters to a writer.
It is puzzling to me, that someone who seems so committed to his craft would leave such crucial part of it out of his musings.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the writer predicts, it’s the ongoing storylines that are more interesting than the day-to-day diary. In the early stage this is the writing group, which was a welcome weekly event that left me wanting a lot more. Later it was beginnings and endings, which I found more divisive. The rest of the diary comprised the full minutiae of writing, but without any of the bits I was interested in - less ‘where is the plot going’ and ‘what metaphor am I creating’, more ‘which pencil sharpener is the best’ and ‘shall I rearrange my desk’. It was like me writing about doing psychotherapy but focusing on the room booking system and the colour of the carpets. I read this on the back of ‘Diary of a Provincial Lady’ which did a lovely job of detailing family life with self-deprecation and social awkwardness - I found the focus of this one frustrating and even a little perverse.

[Rex Fausett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave it up at September 2nd. So many pages filled with filler. I will read his other books provided he sends me a signed copy with a thousand pounds enclosed (cash, not cheques) because if this is how he writes then those books must be tedious in the extreme. I assume his mother died, possibly to get away from him, and I assume the child flippantly named Flipper will be born and probably perfectly normal in every way despite Toby's fears of things going terribly wrong. If that wasn't the case, I apologise but he can always write another ending with his never-ending supply of pencils and pens and his boring pencil sharpeners. As for his fears that his basement will be flooded and his works on paper lost, then here's a toast to flooding. A merciful release for us all.
Oh, before I forget, Toby mentions his other fears, including his writing ability. A well-founded fear.

[Thesincouch]

January 2023, Februar 26 (I think): I did love the formatting - it did really feel like I was reading a diary without the hassle of trying to decipher someone's handwriting. The writing per se was super engaging - I was really hooked on Leigh's pregnancy, wanted to know how the narrator's mom was doing and about the students in the workshop. My problem was the rest of the entries, which was most of it. Some of the entries read like gibberish (which was on purpose and funny), others were at a level of navel gazing that as someone who only dips her toe on literary fiction couldn't stand.

[Andy Helliwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feels like an exercise in form more than anything else, but I enjoyed it

[Olivia Sinclair · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self indulgent project

[Johanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A little self indulgent but becomes more immersive and moving as it goes on.

[Shani Cadwallender · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to sum up, actually. Made me laugh, cry, turn down the pages for future reference, consider my whole life and giving up milk and the origins of words even more than normal. Utterly utter.