By Ian McMillan

Published 12th Mar 2022, 11:47 BST

The workshop happened at the home of Barrow FC and we decided that we’d create a new footballer that we would pretend had played for Barrow; we’d make stories about him, and poems, and maybe make a fake programme with him in it. The first thing we had to do, though, was find a name for him.

As readers will know, I love chance and randomness and we decided to get the footballer’s name by opening a Yellow Pages (remember them?) and pointing to a word at random. I opened the phone book, trying to make a theatrical moment of it, and ended up pointing to the first page, which I was a little disappointed with but it offered us a slice of pure gold. My finger came to rest on A1 Mobility, a taxi firm.

I stared at it for a moment, trying to make the words release some magic and then they did, like words usually do if you gaze at them hard enough.

Ian McMillan's first steps to becoming a writer.

Al Mobility: that could be the footballer’s name. Al Mobility, lost and forgotten hero of the Barrow football team of the 1930s!

As well as writing about him and filming a little puppet show, we made a page from a football magazine that featured him, and a series of fake cigarette cards that told the story of his illustrious (well, fairly) career.

And that’s what I’d urge all creative thinkers to do; let a little randomness into your life. Don’t plan too much. Don’t have a series of aims and outcomes, just open yourself up to possibilities.

Yes, I realise all this is easier said than done and there’s something very comforting about the scaffolding of a plan but there’s also, for me at least, something equally comforting about the anti-scaffolding of no plan at all.

Often, when I’m running writing workshops, I use this “let’s pick a line from a book” idea.

I was once working with a group of school students and we were planning to write a musical; I picked a book from the shelf and opened it at random and read the word “Armbands”. For a brief moment even I was stumped, and then a girl said “Armbands and the Beast”, and the idea for a story about a nervous boy who always wore armbands because he was scared he might fall into any canal or river he happened to be passing. We developed the idea and the musical was gradually born.

Don’t be nervous; use this magazine. Think of a number between one and ten. Think of a number between one and a hundred. Let’s say six and 84; so you turn to the sixth page of the magazine and you use the 84th word as the first word of a story.

Have a go! It’s a (non) plan!

The first steps to take when planning to become a writer - Ian McMillan