KIND OF MY THING: 

‘Times are bad.  Children no longer obey their parents and everybody is writing a book’. 

• Cicero. 

So, I’m writing a book.  This is nothing new, I mean, I am a writer.  It’s kind of my thing.   

They say that surgeons have their own private cemetery.  Every mistake they ever made, which they make a mental visit to, periodically.  This must be, I reckon at least my third serious attempt at writing one.  Let’s leave aside, the childish affectations of filling an exercise book with a new Doctor Who or a Star Wars sequel. Pool Of Blood, a comic horror set in Liverpool is on an old laptop, in a Scouse landfill somewhere.  Josh101 a YA novel, is on the red USB in the tin the bookshelves behind me.   

What do all these “projects” (a wanky phrase, but it fits) have in common?  Unfinished, lost, forgotten.  The new novel is called River City People.  It’s set in a fictional version of Liverpool.  It is, as yet unfinished.  But it still has an energy and freshness I love.  And I’m still working on it.  Shit, I might even finish it.  Fuck, it might even get published and I might actually earn some money for it.   

I was inspired to give flight to my dreams, after attending Marian Keyes novel writing class.   For four Monday evenings in January, I listened, made patient notes and my homework diligently.  It was ever thus, though in St Kev’s in the early 1980’s, I never asked questions on Instagram. This gave me ideas, plotlines and fully-formed, three-dimensional characters.  Admittedly, I’m gonna work some of my old ones in there too.   

The novel lives on my laptop, it’s backed up on the purple USB.  It’s currently about the 20,000wds mark (or 100kb).  It’s not just a thumbnail, or a waveform.  It’s a living, breathing thing.  Like all life’s good things - a relationship, a child, a plant, a pet – it needs constant care and attention.  I try and write every day (on a notepad), but it’s not the worst thing in the world if writer’s block, workpeople, a Hello Fresh delivery, a dip of depression, or even the odd virus get in the way. 

When I have enough, I fire up the laptop, play Sarah Gosling’s show on BBC Radio Devon and type it, save it, back it up.  In between, there is coffee and chocolate (current favourite: Daim Latte).  When not writing, I try and keep the energy going, think about plot holes, pester people to use their surnames as characters and kick around what is going to happen on long country walks.   

It’s my routine, and it appears to be working.  I have a good sounding board in my wife. I’m looking at the routine of famous writers and listening to interviews with them.  Everything is both research and inspiration at the same time.   I am, after all: a writer.  A guardian of truth and justice in the universe (allegedly).   

Then again, why should I get so territorial?  Everyone is writing a novel.  Celebrities (the orphan child of the English language) have books out on a regular basis.  Generally, these are kids' books.  So they’re not on my radar as much as they used to be.  But generally, the constant stream of ‘celeb’ books needles me.  And I can’t figure out why, exactly. 

It’s not professional jealousy.  I’m genuinely pleased that someone as nice as Richard Osman can get both a seven-figure advance and a four-book deal for his first novel.  Similarly, I don’t envy the large advance that Celia Walden got for her next book.  it’s a lot of money, but inadequate compensation for being married to mouthy gammonlord Piers Morgan.   

And I genuinely feel that sometimes, ‘celeb’ books can do some good.  The ongoing conversation about mental health can only be continued by celeb’s who write honestly about their depression.  That way, it makes it a plain and everyday fact.  It also gets rid of well-meaning, but patronising dickheads who use the ‘broken leg’ analogy. 

But you know.  I’m a writer.  This is kind of my thing.  I’m following the Blakeian tradition, of using my talents for “spiritual communion” and not “throwing it in the ground for a lack of bread”.  I rarely earn any money for what I do, even though technically my job is being a carer to my wife.  I always remember the school careers officer, advising me not to be a writer as “it’s hard to make a living from it” and advising me to be “a lorry driver, like your dad.” 

So, in that sense I’m just writing to piss someone off; who in reality may not be alive anymore.  You can’t get more existential than that.  The upside is that there is a long list of teachers and lecturers who would probably love my writing. One got in touch with me on Facebook to say so.  So there. 

But we’re in a sort of information war at the moment.  Where to question the large amount of money in a politician’s account; or committing senecide for a cheap burger is ‘racist’.  Where BAME people can even gaslight BAME people, into the disingenuous concept that it doesn’t even actually exist.   

Incidentally, David Baddiel got a whole book of the erroneous concept that, if you’re left-wing you’re antisemitic.  To say that is blown out of all proportion, is a point of view.  I’m a socialist, with Jewish heritage in me, somewhere.  I direct my ire and disdain towards racists, flagshaggers and middle-aged comedians who have yet to achieve puberty.   

I write, because I like it.  It’s a mental-health activity, as much as me doing Popmaster every day.  I still dream that someone might offer me a large cheque, that my wife will be organising a book tour for me, someday.  In that sense, it’s as remote a concept as a lottery win, world peace, me managing Liverpool FC.   

So, when someone ‘famous’ writes something with genuine weight and verve (like Michelle Obama’s autobiography), I’m both pleased and enthused at the same time.  When John Cooper Clarke’s autobiography has the same laconic drone of the eminent Salforian, I’ll devour in it a week.   

But (and I know starting a sentence with one is factually incorrect, a teacher told me so) when I’m not reading books, or pre-ordering books, I’m writing.  Because that is much a thread of my soul, as blue eyes, the mole on my stomach, the scar on my left leg.   

Because I’m a writer.  It’s kind of my thing.