I moved into a pub with my parents and brother when I was 16. It was very exciting. I enjoyed barwork and the opportunity to eavesdrop. I had learned most of what I knew from books until then, when I was curious about the adult world. I could study all of these real lives. I thought I would write this down and put it in my diary.
It was the first Christmas and New Year's Eve of 1990 and everyone was out in full force. After the pub had emptied and the work of clearing it up was done, we gathered with our staff for a few drinks and talked about resolutions. The women wanted to lose weight. Some people want to stop smoking. I said that I wanted to write a novel.
I wish I could tell you what he said, but I can't. He might have pledged to try for good results. He got the best grades in school if he did. He was in a coma after emergency brain surgery after he was knocked over by a car. I was by his bedside in the intensive care unit, talking to him, because everyone from the ambulance drivers had suggested that this might help keep him with us. I tried to pray in the hospital chapel. Please do not let him die. He is too young. He is too good. I love him so much. Please help him.
I was at home when I wasn't with him. I could put on a brave face behind the bar, but when I was alone I gave up. I couldn't believe what had happened. I didn't have anything to say. I knew that I couldn't write anything again if Matty woke up. I felt sick when I saw my diary. I hated my younger, innocent self. I put them all in the skip at the back of the pub and poked them through the bin liners and boxes to find the crisp packets and cigarette ends.
I tried to write a novel, but Matty appeared on the page.
He did not die, but did not regain consciousness. He lived on for eight years in a persistent vegetative state until my parents and I were granted permission to withdraw nutrition and hydration so that he could die and we could have a funeral.
I was sad. I tried to understand what happened to Matty and how it felt to be the witness at his bedside over the next decade. It was always hard. I would have less doubts if I were a good writer. What was the point? No one would want to read that story. I tried to write novels, but sooner or later Matty would arrive and want to be heard. I was stuck. I would have another go and then give up. I felt like I was destined to fail at this, as I did at everything else, that the car that knocked Matty over had taken me out, too, that I was alive, but only just, and that I couldn't ask for too much. I would put my notebooks in a drawer and try to care for other things.
I was filled with renewed determination after the birth of my son. I realized that the only way I could escape from this cycle of trying and failing was to get it all down. I made a new goal. I had to do it. It didn't have to be great. I didn't have to worry about what other people would think because I wouldn't show it to anyone. A priest said in a novel that our secrets make us sick. I thought that was it. I need to confess everything to the page. Will I feel better after that?
It was difficult. I felt like I was wrestling an animal as I struggled to tame the different parts of the story. I would feel tired but I could keep going, and I found myself on the pages of The Last Act of Love. It took a long time. I finished my book about him when I was 42, 25 years after he died, and 17 years after he was knocked over. I did feel better. If we can be brave enough to make a commitment and have the strength to hold steady through all the ups and downs, we can achieve a lot.
I am still amazed at the process of writing. The first steps are very easy. We find paper or a computer. Something magical starts to happen when we put down some words and fiddle with them. I feel a little evangelical about encouraging others, so please allow me to suggest writing to you as a New Year's resolution, it's the nearest I get to touching the divine. It's better for us in the long run if we eat less. Don't want to shrink your body. If you are bold enough to mine the self, then you can finally try to tell the story you have been carrying around, perhaps for as long as I did. Write down your life and make a personal record of the interesting times we are living in. What you see on your way to work, or what you dream about, or how you feel just before you go to sleep. There are three things to be thankful for, four blue things you saw that day, and notes from your exercise. If you had written down a few lines about each day, it would be better.
I like to moan into my notebooks.
Or complain. I like to moan into my notebooks. Private space to let off steam is a release. In a world of hyper communication where anyone with a social media account can feel under pressure to issue press release style comment on every issue and event, taking a pen and writing down our own thoughts with no aim other than making sense of things for ourselves is a great way to escape.
You need to accept that you will have to put in some effort, that's the best piece of advice I have for you. Our culture focuses too much on talent. We think that writers are special because they can sit at their desks in a book-lined room and allow beautiful prose to flow from their pens, all in the right order. When we escape that idealised image and concentrate on effort, we get along better. Prepare and Graft are some of the most worthwhile activities. If we want to run a marathon or climb a mountain, we will need to work hard. My writing life has become less anguished since I stopped being cross with myself that I don't find it easy.
Writing should lead to publication and profit, that is a cultural misunderstanding. We can do it for pleasure and personal development, like learning to play the ukulele, or getting into running or swimming. Not every pursuit has a commercial purpose. Writing is a way to keep our eyes on the stars. Let that be enough in the beginning. Don't put too much pressure on those shoots. Who knows what will happen? Writing is acorn activity. The important thing is to get started and then we can see what we end up growing.
My resolution this year? I want to finish a book and I also like to play the ukulele. One of my old friends told me recently that I was always going on about writing. You have done a lot. I hope that by the year 2022, I will have finished my sixth book. I know there will be ups and downs, but I have learned that it is worth it.
The book "How to Put Your Life on the Page" is published on January 6th. You can buy it at guardianbookshop.com.
