Matthew Beaumont

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

That most advice is useless, in that everyone approaches writing in radically different ways... More seriously, though, I'd recommend that people don't get too caught up on the writing itself but concentrate instead on the activities that precede that process - by which I don't mean planning plots or practicing techniques or anything like that, I mean daydreaming. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Go for long walks, in the city or the countryside, and let your imagination off the leash.

Matthew Beaumont, a Professor of English Literature at University College London, is the author of Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London (2015) and The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City (2020).