The writer's process

I am a writer.

And by writer, of course, I mean neurotic.

Right now you join me at the most painful part of the process. But to understand that, you need to understand the process itself.

The process is this.

You start with an idea. And this idea lives with the other hundred or so ideas that are housed in the zoo of your mind. It stays there for a while. Sometimes a month, sometimes a decade - and then it becomes the idea. The one that needs to be set free. The one you have to write, right up until the moment you start writing it, when suddenly all the other ideas look far better.

But you give it ten thousand words, and then you will know if it is the one. If it has life. If it 'has wings'. And look - it does. And the way you know it is the right idea is because, though it isn't the most sensible or career-friendly idea you've had, it excites you. It is big, the biggest you can think of.  

Oh, and you call it The Humans, because how could it ever be called anything else?

And as you write it you inhabit it completely. You begin to smell, and your stomach rumbles a lot. You grow facial hair but not in a fashionable Shoreditch kind of way. Your dressing gown might be growing a kind of moss. You neglect to phone your mother. But you carry on, fuelled by nothing but arrogance and creative momentum and the desire to prove your old English teacher wrong.

This is brilliant, you tell yourself. This is the human experience. You make yourself laugh, you make yourself cry, you shock yourself with that cruel incident on page 87. You know the characters so well you feel you should text them. And then it is over. It is perfect, there, on your laptop. Like pure untrodden snow.

You've spell-checked and re-read it a thousand times. And then you send it to your editor. And that is the point, right there. The climax. That is the best bit of the whole process. Because nothing can top that. No Booker Prize win, no chat with Oprah could ever feel better than that sweet moment of releasing your baby - your perfect baby - into the world (the world being the inbox of your editor).

You stay happy for a while. A good five minutes, I would say. Maybe six. But then you return to your natural writer state. Paranoia. Why hasn't my editor got back? Why did I write a book with an alien in it? And - HOLY GUACAMOLE! - what the HELL is that comma doing on page 42 line six? And, and, and if you are going to quote Kierkegaard make sure you know where to put an apostrophe!

Jesus.

Your editor responds. He has a few things to change but he likes it. You relax. You work on the second draft. And then the third. And the fourth. (It actually is moss on your dressing gown by this point). And a polish edit. And another edit to respond to another editor's queries. And then a second polish. And then the copy-editor's queries. And on and on until, through sheer exhaustion, everyone collapses on top of each other and says it is ready.

So then you wait and the cover arrives. It says The Humans on it so you know it's your cover but a few people don't like it so there is another cover. And this one is better because it has a dog on it, and there is a dog in the book, and everyone likes dogs so…

It gets closer. You are published in 2013. When you first had this idea - ten years before - you imagined there would be hover boards by 2013. There aren't, but there will be your novel. And so you worry.

You shouldn't be worried, of course. You have been here eight times before. But you have never written a novel like this. That is the weird thing. It is also the most personal thing you've ever written, which is weird because, well, there's an alien in it.

You thought it was amazing. Now you worry it is rubbish.

And that title, The Humans, couldn't every novel that has ever been written be called The Humans?

No. People will get the title. They will, they will, they won't, they will…

You dream you are naked in a public place. Because you are the book and soon the book will be in public places.

You are not published in May, but that is not the worst bit of the process. The worst bit is now, in January 2013, because that is when the book is out there. Not quite fully grown, but in its spotty-faced school uniform (or 'uncorrected proof') version. And this is when it is sent to lots of writers and bloggers and reviewers. And you just sit there, knowing your other self is in their homes - either being read or being unread (you don't know which is worse).

You try to slow your breathing. You have a shower. You tweet (a lot). You go for a walk. You write a blog. You phone your mother. Then you sit down at your desk and write that other book you have to write, the one with a deadline looming. And, as always, the creation of words calms you, and makes you realise what you always secretly know.

You are not a writer because you want good reviews. Or good sales.

You would write whatever.

And the comfort of writing takes you away from the anxiety of being published. And, just for a moment or two, you feel yourself dissolving into the words you are putting onto paper, and you are saved, redeemed, by imagination and the act of creation.

Then you go and wash your dressing gown.