I've been inspired by reading War And Peace.
After all, if something so unremittingly dull and unnecessarily long can be considered a classic, we've all got a chance of getting published, right?
They should have got a good sub-editor on to the case and reduced it to something the size of a newspaper report.
The trouble is, I don't know what I'd write about.
All the big subjects – war and peace, crime and punishment, Del Boy and Rodney – have already been done.
I'm not intelligent enough to write a Road To Wigan Pier-style thesis on society – although I like the title The Road To Dean Clough. Perhaps someone else can use that and share my royalties?
And I don't think an autobiographical piece would be much good seeing as the most interesting thing to happen to me of late is buying a new cardy and some reduced CDs.
Not like another hack I met this week. He was from the old school.
He told me about the time he'd "cleared the mantlepiece" on his editor's say-so.
That is: he walked into the home of a family whose eight-year-old son had died days earlier and, after they refused to give him a picture, he swiped one from the mantlepiece.
I guess that was before they invented ethics. I wondered if I'd do the same thing if I was asked...
I told him he should write a book of memoirs.
"Don't be stupid," he said. "I hate writing."
Talking of old school people with interesting tales, I met an old school friend with some interesting tales.
He's a music promoter down in London now. He'd met a load of bands I'd never heard of but I was assured they're all going to be The Next Big Things.
He asked if I wanted to do a story on him and I said maybe if he moved to Calderdale and did a charity run. He told me he'd been high for three days. I made my excuses and left.
Never trust a man who's wearing sunglasses at 3am – even if you did once sit together in double maths.
But a book?
Still no inspiration apart from the small desire to pay tribute to Bobby Fisher, the chess player who went mad and wanted only to live alone in a house "shaped exactly like a rook".
I'd like that too.
But before I can buy one I need that publishing deal.
I need inspiration for several hundreds pages of entertaining material.
Tough one.
Sometimes – although I've never heard Richard Littlejohn admit this – just filing 480 words of comment can be hard enough.