“I am Actually Quite a Good Writer”

Admission is often hard. Before the actual words involved have a chance to scratch and scrape the throat as they make their escape run, the mind will go to extraordinary measures to prevent their release. Diversion. Distraction. Entire fabricated histories to convince you that the truth has no validity are all common tactics.

For years I have labelled myself a simple hack. Accepted my own lack of talent. Dodged all those compliments paid to my writing. Yet last week, sitting in Mr. Dedopolus’s Life On Mars Towers living room, the words finally broke out. “I am actually quite a good writer.”

The statement probably sounds like rampant self-importance. Public preening. A shameful example of a writer’s bloated sense of his own value. Yet it is not. It is a shocking and painful revelation to me that on occasion I am quite good. A lot of people have been right for years and I have been wrong. I am repeating it on the blog as both apology and communal declaration so that there can be no backsliding from me.

The words said destroy my excuse for not attempting several projects. They corrode the sense that I fall so short of the genius of certain writer friends that I would embarrass myself to even attempt a novel. The admission obliterates my capacity to take on a commission to turn out crap just to pay the bills.

For an alcoholic, honesty is the first stage in an ending denial and putting down the bottle. For me, honesty means turning down £3,500 advance against royalties to write what would be an appalling 1001 book. Yes I could knock out 80,000 words on financial ruination in less than three months, but I now know I should not.

Flesh is finite. The meat cage is the ultimate prison. If I aimed to write a book per year for the rest of my life I would at best only produce 30 titles. Admitting that on a good day, I can actually write means it would be an appalling waste of me, as well as trees, to write anymore bad gear. I will now have to find some other way to finance Syrian adventures.

A Tribal Affair

The new book is written and has been delivered to my commissioning editor. According to him: “It looks great.” My sigh of relief on hearing this was so deep I think the subsonic hum caused damage to the Westway’s concrete.

The good news keeps rolling with the discovery that the project is going to be copy-edited by Tim Dedopulos. This is a lovely bonus. Tim’s name was in the acknowledgements as one of my ‘brothers by other mothers’ long before I knew he would be working on the book.

Writing it with Matt Adams – whose name would have been in the acknowledgements of any project – then being edited by Tim makes it feel like a tribal affair. Sharing the spoils of a kill, turning one gig into work that helps keep three of us in the black. The running tribe model, the 21st century way,

The project is my first humour book in a decade. Unlike the crime against trees I put my name to help clear Anne-Marie Forker’s student debts, this one is almost readable. I am happy to admit it is a hack gig. When you need to pay for a funeral, there is no better way than to write a book about death. As Andy Warhol would say: “I’ve got to bring home the bacon, someone’s got to bring home the roast.”

However, doing this book has also meant being commissioned by someone I really rate and like, writing with one of the people I am closest to and being edited by a man who I consider a brother despite him having once stolen my name. It really does feel like the way forward. Working with my friends, dividing the score.

Now the book is over, there is only one more thing to do before I can get back to life. After I get back from the hospital I can concentrate on the important things. There are ducks to feed and brioche bread and butter puddings to make. A 99-year-old Nanna to spoil and lazing in bed with the Sunday morning papers to catch up on.