23rd March, 1964 - In His Own Write Is Published

"I like writing books. I got a big kick out of the first one. There was a literary lunch to which I was invited and at which I couldn't thick of anything to say - I was scared stiff, that's why I didn't. I got as big a kick out of seeing that book up there in the writing world's Top Ten as I do when The Beatles get a Number One record. And the reason is that it's part of a different world." - John, from The Beatles Anthology. In His Own Write was published on 23 March, 1964, during the filming of A Hard Day's Night. "It consists of short stories and poems, and line drawings, often surreal and always nonsensical. The book is notable in that it was the first solo Beatle project in any form." (Wikipedia)

It's about nothing. If you like it, you like it; if you don't, you don't. That's all there is to it. There's nothing deep in it, it's just meant to be funny. I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pocket. When I have enough of them, I have a book.

If I hadn't been a Beatle I wouldn't have thought of having the stuff published. I would have been crawling around broke and just writing it and throwing it away. I might have been a Beat Poet.

What success really does for you is give you a feeling of confidence in yourself. It's an indescribable feeling; but once you've had it, you never want it to stop.

Some of it came from his schooldays, from the Daily Howl, a comic full of his jokes and avant-garde poetry, but a lot of the book was new. It turned up in A Hard Day's Night. That was the best plug you could have for a book - to put it in a hit movie.