Douglas Adams’ motivational note to himself should go on every writer’s wall

Douglas Adams is one of the most famous British writers of the 20th Century and yet his craft often caused him great stress and frustration.

The late Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy creator was celebrated for his exuberant ideas and limitless imagination, but they didn’t always flow from his pen, archive materials reveal.

A number of documents, including notebooks, letters, scripts and to-do lists, reveal the author’s struggle.

In one note to himself, Adams – who died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 49 – reminded himself that the pains of the creative process were all worth it in the end.

“Writing isn’t so bad really when you get through the worry,” he reassured himself.

“Forget about the worry, just press on. Don’t be embarrassed about the bad bits. Don’t strain at them…

“But writing can be good. You attack it, don’t let it attack you. You can get pleasure out of it. You can certainly do very well for yourself with it…”

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A photo of Adams’ “general note to myself” has been widely shared on social media to inspire writers everywhere to push through the dry spells and, of course, to not panic.

Following the sci-fi genius’s death, his family loaned the 67 boxes of archive material to his former Cambridge college: St John’s.

This treasure trove of mementos is now being collated and published in a book titled 42 – famously the answer to “the life, the universe and everything” according to Adams’ iconic Hitchhiker’s Guide series.

However, the mastermind wasn’t always happy with his most iconic work, as another self-scribed note reveals.

In it, he writes bluntly: “Arthur Dent is a burk. He does not interest me. Ford Prefect is a burk. He does not interest me. Zaphod Beeblebrox is a burk. He does not interest me,” he writes of his protagonists.

“Marvin is a burk. He does not interest me. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is a burk. It does not interest me.”

The archive includes notebooks, letters, scripts, jokes, speeches, to-do lists and poems

The editor of 42, Kevin Jon Davies said it was “emotional” to see Adams’ notes.

Davies said the archives mirrored his first meeting with the writer in 1978 with his “cluttered desk and his butterfly mind – draft pages, letters and notebooks, with inky crossings-out and ‘middles of thoughts’ – rich with comedic genius and some truly terrible typing”.

The new book will be printed by crowdfunding publisher Unbound, which allows people to order a work via the dedicated website before its publication.

Once a certain demand is reached – around 1,000 sales in the case of 42 – the book then enters production.

42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams is due out next year

Mathew Clayton, Unbound’s head of publishing said 42 finds “a new way to unlock the archive of one of the most creative thinkers of the past half-century.”

“We wanted to make a book to enhance that legacy,” he added. “To fix and reinforce Adams’s reputation as a philosopher and seer.”

He continued: “Thanks to the enthusiastic support and guidance of his family, we think 42 will do that .

“And crowdfunding it is exactly the sort of revolutionary strategy that Adams would have embraced.”

42: The Wildly Improbable Ideasof Douglas Adams is due out in 2022 to mark what would have been the writer’s 70th birthday.

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