When writing, start at the beginning

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Attempting to gain access to Mount Athos

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When writing, start at the beginning

John Julius Norwich Writer

	Views	Duration
101. When writing, start at the beginning	59	00:30
102. Attempting to gain access to Mount Athos	45	01:36
103. A world without women	47	02:10
104. The austerity and beauty of life on Mount Athos	42	03:16
105. When is Mount Athos like Eton?	42	02:41
106. Mount Athos then and now	41	02:12
107. Setting out to cross the Sahara Desert	38	04:50
108. Camels and camps in the Sahara	35	04:06
109. An eventful homeward journey	40	04:32
110. Time suspended	40	02:35

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[Q] How did you go about writing that history? Did you do that from the...

I did it from beginning to end, the only way I can ever do anything. The advice given originally, I think, to Alice in Wonderland, you know: start at the beginning, go on until you get to the end, and stop. And that's always what I've done. I mean, I've never... I have friends who sort of start in the middle of... even novelists, they start in the middle of the novel, you know, or they start a particularly easy bit or a particularly difficult bit. I just start at the beginning.

John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was an English popular historian, travel writer and television personality. He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, at Eton, at the University of Strasbourg and on the lower deck of the Royal Navy before taking a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. He then spent twelve years in H.M. Foreign Service, with posts at the Embassies in Belgrade and Beirut and at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. In 1964 he resigned to become a writer. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and, most recently, 'The Popes: A History'. He also wrote on architecture, music and the history plays of Shakespeare, and presented some thirty historical documentaries on BBC Television.

Title: When writing, start at the beginning

Listeners: Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes is an independent documentary producer who has made a number of films about science and scientists for BBC TV, Channel Four, and PBS.

Tags: beginning, novel, writing

Duration: 30 seconds

Date story recorded: 2017

Date story went live: 03 October 2018