Would you like some cheese with that whine?

I’m a writer. I know; you’re shocked. But here’s the killer line: I’m a writer by choice. Oh sure, I was born with the compulsion to tell stories, an affinity with books, a feeling of coming home every time I stepped into a library, a book shop, a room lined with bookcases. But I choose to do something about it. No-one makes me sit down in my office chair every morning and bang away at the laptop until I reach ‘The End’. I only wish they did; maybe then I’d get to ‘The End’ an awful lot sooner.

It’s a really hard life, falling out of bed at whatever hour I choose, making a huge mug of tea and sitting at my laptop, still in my pyjamas if I can’t be bothered getting dressed just yet, and writing about romantic relationships with a sharp focus on their sexual dynamic. Especially hard to take are the occasional emails from people telling me how much they enjoy my books. And it’s a real kicker when I get a favourable review which in turn influences other people to buy one of my novels and read it themselves. Those four-star ratings are a real insult. Why aren’t they fives? Don’t they know who I am?

Sometimes the pressure gets too much for me and I’m forced to publicise the difficulties of my existence on this blog and Twitter. Every bead of perspiration is documented in exacting detail, just so you, my public, understand the tortures I go through to bring to you filthy, dirty books full of spanking and blow jobs.

Actually, wait, no...that’s bullshit.

I’m gonna tell you the truth right here, right now: writing is occasionally puzzling or challenging. Challenges are opportunities wearing a cloak of disguise. You might sit up and think, “Hmm, how do I write my way out of this one? Never mind; I’ll work on another scene until it comes to me.” But is this process difficult? Hard? Hell no.

What’s difficult about switching on a computer and making shit up? I’m not out there in the driving rain digging ditches. I’m not dressed in scrubs with someone else’s life literally in the palms of my hands. I’m not making decisions that could change the political map of my country overnight.

Yes, I acknowledge that literature can change the world, the pen being mightier than the sword. Oftentimes that occurs when the book is out of the author’s hands, when it belongs to the world. I’m talking about the bread-and-butter, day-in, day-out routine, schedule, workaday bollocks that boils down to nothing more than this acronym:

BICHOK.

Butt in chair, hands on keyboard.

Characters misbehave. They surprise you. They tangle you in knots mentally and emotionally sometimes. This is a good thing. It proves your characters are real. If you, the author, aren’t emotionally invested, how on earth can you expect the reader to be? I’ll say it again: this is a good thing.

Don’t complain when good things happen. It makes you look like an ungrateful diva.

If you feel compelled to do so and can’t (or won’t) resist? Quit. Seriously. Take your negative energy away from this thing which I love most. You’re poisoning it. Take up something which incurs less pressure for you. Say...brain surgery? No-one makes you do this. No-one made this choice for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m lucky. I hate the concept of luck. I worked for this. I deserve it. I got to be here because of everything I went through back there. I love this job. It infuriates me sometimes but even then, even when I hate it, I love the very bones of it, every breath taken in the process.

I have no sympathy for writers who complain about how what are essential parts of this work. Find it hard it to come up with ideas? They’re all around us. Is it ‘hard’ to outline? Maybe your story isn’t ready to be told yet. Does your writing drag when you’re nearing the end of a project? The only way out is through. Is it difficult for you to find the time to write? There are 24 hours in my day; how about yours? Do you have a long, tailing-around-the-corner-at-the-end-of-the-street queue of characters and scenes which increase daily? Good. Welcome to my world.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve sat here and grizzled over a character not doing as he’s told (lookin’ at you, Daniel Fucking Cross), a chapter not going the way I planned, a plotline doing a complete 180 on me. It’s surprising and exhilarating, this voyage of discovery, beautiful and terrifying. I mutter a bit, vent out loud but ultimately it makes me feel alive, this activity which is, every day, an act of creation. It’s a megalomaniac’s dream. Writers are gods of their own creation. We have entire universes inside our heads.

No writer will ever be talented enough to write a blog post, a Tweet, or an email which convinces me of anything other than this one true thing: writing? I choose you.