1 Cherish Your Tools: In May 1952, before he had sold his first novel, Fleming ordered a gold-plated Royal typewriter. This was steam-driven impact writing.
2 Know Your Priorities: Profession. Partner. Place. Fleming chose place, buying a donkey race track in Jamaica after the war, designing and building Goldeneye. When it came to profession, he dictated the terms--two months of leave, from January to March. His work schedule in London was two days a week in London, the rest of the time at a flat in the country.
3 Have Your Fantasy Life in Place, Then Marry: Fleming, at 43, wrote Casino Royale while waiting for his lover to get a divorce (she was pregnant with his child).
4 Acknowledge your Friends: In a widely publicized moment, President Kennedy listed From Russia With Love as one of his 10 favorite books. Fleming returned the favor. Bond read Kennedy's Profiles in Courage in The Man With the Golden Gun. Ursula Andress, whose emergence from the sea in a dagger-clad bikini in Dr. No caught the world's eye, was one of the guests at Blofeld's private ski resort in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In the movie version of the latter, Bond scans then steals the Centerfold of Playmate Lorrie Menconi while waiting for a safecracking device to find the right combination. In Diamonds Are Forever, a check of his wallet reveals that Bond is a member of the Playboy Club.
5 Be Sensible about your Wheels: In his Playboy Interview, Fleming gave this definition of a good car: "Something I can leave out in the street all night and which will start at once in the morning and still go 100 miles an hour when you want it to and yet give a fairly comfortable ride." Fleming owned two Thunderbirds--"the good two seater and the less good four seater"--and an Avanti.
6 Pay Attention: "Writing makes you more alive to your surroundings, and since the main ingredient of living, though you might not think so to look at most human beings, is to be alive, this is quite a worthwhile by-product, even if you only write thrillers."
