Can anyone identify this novel about a notebook that makes stories real?

[Waawo]

Does anyone recognise this book, that I read years ago? Probably twenty years ago, at least fifteen.

The premise is that a writer buys a new notebook, possibly at a station platform stationer, and when he writes in it, what he writes comes true.

The first time is on the train journey immediately after buying, he is writing a story about being in Russia in maybe the 1930s and his train suddenly becomes a train travelling through Stalinist Russia.

In the end, the house he lives in burns down and the notebook goes up in flames, all that he finds in the burned out ruin is the charred spiral binder.

That's about all I can remember, except that life with a magical notebook wasn't as easy as you might imagine...

Just to add two more details:

He can get basically anything he wants by writing about it, and describes his regret about lighting a wood fire in his cottage (which ultimately causes the house fire) and muses why he didn't just write about how good the central heating in his home was.

And the other one, which is the real reason I want to revisit this, is what seems like an incredibly prescient description of what we now call AI - at least in its vibe coding incarnation. He recognises that he has a limited amount of pages in the notebook; and also recognises that he writes the same things over and over again - example, "he went to his fully stocked fridge and chose something delicious for dinner". So he builds a machine that holds the notebook open on his "often used phrases" page, and uses a pen held by the machine to write over the same words over and over, so he can do this every week without using more space. But the AI bit is this, something like "he didn't really have any idea how to build such a machine, but simply described the machine in the notebook, upon which it appeared"

Why didn’t he just write that his fridge was permanently stocked with delicious food?

No idea what the book is sorry but I am intrigued and following for the answer!

Well you’ve wrecked that one for anyone intrigued by the start of your op and hoping to read it. 🙄

If they want to read it, it'll need identifying, which requires as much remembered information as possible.

I have just remembered another detail:

He writes into existence a shiny new 4x4 or similar; but it's quite awkward to explain to people he knows how this broke writer bought the shiny new car, so he ends up parking some way away from the places he's going to and walking the last bit anyway...

Is it Oracle Night by Paul Auster?

Hm I don't think so, although I can see from the synopsis the similarity of the setup. I quite want to read Oracle Night now though, so thanks for the accidental recommendation!

[ETA I've just placed a library hold on it]

I hope you find the book you're looking for.