Do I like writing? Of course I bloody don't....

So, do you like writing?’ he says. I don’t have to think about this.

‘No. No I don’t.’ I say.

Of course it's a little bit more complicated than this. I like the feeling of having written. And  I quite like editing. The slash and burn of it. The cut and chop and happy vandalism of it. Restoring white space to the page. It's like reconstructing a lost virginity and somehow I do like that. I even like the feeling of being up at 5.30am when the rest of the world is still dreaming, still pretending that the working day isn’t going to happen.

But no, the actual labour of trying to wrestle wisps of dreams into hard shapes that make sense. The typing, the pacing, the staring at the page while your head bleeds and your shoulders go rigid with the pressure of it all. No, I don’t enjoy that. That just feels like a weird compulsion. An extension of restless legs syndrome, something that keeps me awake and annoys my life partner. Restless brain syndrome maybe.

And there’s also the knowledge that there might not be that much time to write too many more books. After all my father died suddenly at 62, my paternal grandfather died suddenly at 52, his father died at 48, and he outlived his father… My maternal grandfather died at 39. And I’m 48, so I’m deep into the danger zone…

Writing is something I can’t really prevent any more. Like it was something lurking and latent that has risen to the surface. It’s an urge I used to be able to ignore, but the virus – if that’s what it is – is now full blown and so I’m compelled to sit down every morning or I find I’m all unbalanced for the rest of the day.

But I tell you what I do like – meeting readers. And if writing is painful it does have the compensation that, in the end, I quite often end up in libraries talking to thoughtful, intelligent, honest and forthright people who love books. Even if – as sometimes happens – they don’t love mine.

I’m on this splendid Read Regional http://www.readregional.com/ scheme where writers based in the North are matched up with libraries who unleash their writing groups upon us. Sometimes we face these groups on our own, and at other times we have the solidarity of a fellow worker in words to get our backs. And it’s always fun, always enlightening.

So far I’ve been to Hull Central Library (the Saturday before Christmas with Alison Gangel – 5 people there. One of them my father-in-law). I’ve been to Shipley library in February (50 people). I’ve been to Riverside library, Rotherham in a blizzard (25 – very hardy – people). I’ve been to Consett Library where my car blew up on the A1 (M). I was like a Messerschmidt pilot in the film Battle of Britain. Panicking and swearing and wreathed in the most acrid of smoke. I still made the gig though (my father-in-law again, driving from Hull to Wetherby services and whisking me up to County Durham where I stumbled in blackened of face and  20 mins late to the great hilarity of the assembled book club)

It was in Consett that an audience member said ‘My only worry about your book was that you are a middle aged man writing in the voice of a teenager… But having met you it now makes total sense.’ Cheeky, or what.

I’ve also been to York Explore Library where Fiona Shaw and I had a lovely chat with six readers and two librarians. Felt like the most civilised thing that I’ve ever done. It was in York where I was asked if I actually enjoyed writing. I should say that when I gave my answer, the bloke that asked it came back with ‘I don’t believe you.’

At King Cross library in Halifax (15 people)  I tested out the plots of my next two novels and they seemed to go down okay. Which is a relief.

I have two more library gigs at Embsay community library and the fabulously named Sherburn-in-Elmet in North Yorks and come snow, come rain, come hail, come tiny audiences, come exploding cars I will be there. Smart people who have read your book and who generally like it and sometimes point out things that you haven’t noticed yourself -  that’s worth all the pacing and the groaning and the fighting with phantom thoughts who won’t stay still properly. Worth all the slow drip-drip of brain blood onto paper.

And I learn so much too. Because my favourite part of these events is when the audience start to tell you their own stories. Which are always fascinating. And which some reader’s group members at least will see in print if they carry on reading books of mine. Be very careful what you tell a writer. But don’t be careful what you ask. Ask anything you like. I’ll answer honestly. Promise

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BOOKS! - A short note on libraries.

TODAY is National Libraries Day and there will be a lot of chat, a lot of noise about them. I love libraries. How could I not? My dad was a librarian. I spent much of my childhood hanging about in Bedford's County Hall library reading Jane's Fighting Ships. (I was a weird kid. Can't deny it).

 My dad helped design the colour scheme for the new Bedfordshire mobile library service in 1974 (Orange and grey. Dad what were you thinking? You should have asked mum. No, maybe not. Would have inevitably led to a row. God knows everything else did.)

For me, like loads of other people my age and older, libraries sparked off a lifelong reading habit that pretty much defines who we are. Libraries really did set us free.*

Despite that, the current debate around libraries is not about the precious books. I don't fetishise books. (you should see how I treat them. Like a dog treats a bone. Not too much reverence there.) It's about the public space. Libraries are the commons of the indoor world.  No one owns them. No one can kick you out of them, charge you rent for them, or sell them to you. They can ask you to keep your voice down and that's about it.

The professional classes have largely abandoned libraries. They get their books from Amazon or Waterstones, and they do their computing in Starbucks with a large coffee and a slice of something naughty but nice. A slab of something chocolaty. The professionals - the ABC1s - they can afford to pay the cappucino tax. And councillors and council officials are generally emphatically of the professional classes. And this is why they don't know that libraries are full. Full of ordinary working people thinking, reading, writing CVs, looking for work, getting advice, getting the news, studying or - sometimes - just keeping warm.

They're full of kids too. Because libraries are not just the last public space where someone won't try and make you buy a blueberry muffin to justify your seat - they are pretty much the last places where kids can wander without being run down by a car or happy-slapped by their peers.

People wanting to close libraries love it when the debate is about books. So don't do it, Mr library Campaigner! It's a trap! Make the debate about books and the bean counter will adjust his trendy European  style specs and intone statistics about book lending dropping 6.9% year on year, and tell you that current forecasts suggest that the last library book will be issued on September 19 2021 and will be by Catherine Cookson or Jacqueline Wilson. 

Don't make books your battleground. I work for the Arts Council and we have a thing we say - we say we want to Achieve Great Art for Everyone and libraries are key to this. Because libraries are where Everyone is. All those places where theatres aren't, galleries aren't, art centres aren't - libraries are. All those people who don't have wireless internet at home, who don't speak English at home, who don't have jobs - they're in the library. Those hard to reach Cs, Ds, Es - the Neets and the Neds. They're all in the library. It's a paradox isn't it? One of the things about Britain I like.

No, it's not about the books - it's about the PC's and a place to meet and talk and plan. If every time someone logged on to a PC it counted the same as a book being issued the bean counting man with the European style specs would have to revise his figures upwards. He would have to agree that libraries were growing more important not less.

And then, just sometimes, it IS about the books. Everyone's first interaction with the arts comes with a visit to the library as a dot, pushed there by proud parents. Every parent does this. Teenage parents do it, just as Islington yummy mummies do it. Even parents who can't read themselves do it. Every new parent wants the best for their kid and every new parent knows this means stimulation and exercising baby's mind as well as as body - and this means books. Kindles don't really cut the mustard when it comes to picture books and anyway who is going to let Millie, Molly, Polly, Olly, Apple or Harper Seven get their rusky fingers all over their new eThing? The germ that will become the next Alesha Dixon, the next Dappy or the next Chris Martin will be nurtured in the childrens section of the library just as the next Zadie Smith will be.

And let's not be fobbed off with 'iconic' mega-libraries either. (isn't 'iconic' becoming a euphemisim for 'disastrous'? - the Millenium Dome was 'iconic' the Scottish Parliament was 'iconic' the bleeding Titanic was 'iconic' in its day) Of course city centres should have their big libraries. Big libraries with hundreds of PCs, lots of meeting rooms, and all the archives and records for everyone researching their family history. And yes, they should probably have quite a few books as well.

But the estates need their libraries, the villages need their libraries. Britain is not just a country of major cities. It is actually a country of small and medium sized towns and semi urban estates - that's where the real action of the UK takes place. That's where people are living and loving, fighting and fucking. And where people live, love, love, fight and fuck. Well, that's where they need their library -their free space. Their place where they won't have to buy a blueberry muffin just to keep out of the drizzle.

*A note on the Manic Street Preachers, the band who put a love of libraries in the top ten of the hit parade (A Design for Life) - I hate them. they were boring before Richey left and only improved slightly after he disappeared. (and I saw them live during the Richey phase. Dreadful racket)  If You Tolerate This is quite a good song but for the rest - Jesus, they are Coldplay but with a copy of Das Kapital where the tunes should be. They were right about libraries though.