My wife and I spent the last fortnight cycling around Rajasthan with a couple of tour guides and a group of other Brits, all very lovely people. I had confessed early on that I was a writer, and my fellow travelers were interested. I was asked several times if I was getting inspiration from the ride.
Well, yes. But no. But yes.
Yes, I was using the time. There’s quite a lot of thinking you can do on a cycling holiday, especially if the roads are busy enough to oblige you to ride in single file, and your longitude is far enough removed from home to mean that you are lying awake for bits of the night. I had promised my agent a synopsis of a sequel to my current draft novel, without any idea what was going to happen or who the main character would be. By the time we landed back at Heathrow the outline was 80% done.
But no, the novel would have nothing to do with India. I was not gathering inspiration for any novel about the extraordinary country we were visiting. I cannot imagine that I would ever attempt to write a story about India, past or present. I just don’t know enough. I now have a visitor’s fleeting impressions (and approximately 750 photographs or scenery, people, birds and wildlife, so yes I was paying attention,) but not the deep, lived experience of the place and its dreams that would allow either my readers or myself to believe what was written. Write about what you know, they say. Or at least, write about what you can bluff. For me, there’s no bluffing India.
But yes, yes, of course I was gathering inspiration: from the faces, the landscapes, the wheeling kites, the steepling castles. You can’t help but absorb these things (see Ideas and Where They Come From.) Maybe in some future fantasy novel they will come pouring out unexpectedly like coins from an arcade machine after a lucky pull on the lever. No matter how many universes exist, there will only ever be one Taj Mahal. But a story of a king who builds a great monument in grief for his lost wife, of a son who kills his three older brothers and imprisons his father within sight of his mighty work… my goodness, yes! There’s so much to be had there. One day it will make me write it.
In the meanwhile, there’s this sequel which has shouldered its way into the queue!
Last Updated on February 9, 2026 by John