Ian McEwan encouraged aspiring young writers to “disconnect from the internet for at least two hours a day” after being honoured by Britain's King Charles at Windsor Castle.
The novelist and screenwriter was recognised for his services to literature by being made a Companion of Honour at an investiture ceremony on Tuesday morning.
McEwan said it was a “very high honour and special pleasure” to be appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour, which is limited to 65 members who have made a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time.
The Atonement author said that Charles had asked him about his latest project during their meeting: “He asked that inevitable question one asks of writers: ‘What are you working on?’
“We talked about that for a bit and our interest in gardens.”
The novelist, 75, said he believed it was “much harder” to start a career as a writer now than when he started out.
He told the PA news agency: “I think it’s harder, much harder now. On simple matters, if you were a young writer in the 1970s, rents were very low.
“I had a rather grand apartment that cost about £12 a month. And so therefore, a couple of pieces for the Observer or Times Literary Supplement, or so on, could pay the rent months in advance, leaving you free.
“That’s much harder now. So it’s tough, it really is tough.”
Asked what his advice for aspiring young writers was, McEwan said: “Disconnect from the internet for at least two hours a day and treat your own thoughts like a garden through which you are strolling.”
McEwan, who published his latest work, Lessons, in 2022, said the novel has so far “refused to die” as a literary form in an age of technological distractions.
He said: “I know there are many other competing forms, especially long form TV dramas, which are about the closest we’ve got to the Victorian novels.
“But so far, the novel has refused to die, partly because I think it still is the best form for giving us what it means to be a self in a changing world.”
Discussing his own work, he added: “Every book in a sense feels like the first. I’m quite addicted to the idea that every new novel should bear no trace of resemblance to the last.
“And I like to move on and shift my ground rapidly.”
McEwan said he did not think that AI was “anywhere near” yet replicating the quality of a human novel.
He said: “So far, what a novel requires is felt experience, embodied experience. I’m not sure that we’re anywhere near that yet.
“If it comes then and we get a masterpiece every week, maybe we’ll just have to count ourselves extremely lucky.”
Other recipients of awards at Windsor Castle on Tuesday included the artist Hew Locke, former UK Cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill and MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore.
Locke, who was made an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours, said it was “great and strange at the same time” to receive the honour.
The artist grew up in Guyana and said he discussed the South American country with Charles in their conversation.
Locke said it was “great to hear” that Charles was “aware of the situation” in Guyana, after Venezuela recently renewed its border claim on the Essequibo region.
