Would you really want the life of a great writer?

SOMEONE sends a cartoon they’ve found on Twitter. Across the top it reads “Behind every great novelist is ...” and underneath are a row of little drawings.

These illustrate nine things commonly found in the life of writers: childhood trauma, miserable job, moment of self discovery, episode of debauchery, pathologic ambition, loyal pet, neglected spouse, personal demons and years of boring hard work. They forgot the tenth, the one involving a lifetime of being skint.

Going through the list, you might find yourself nodding — endless gruesome jobs from which you are routinely fired, followed by a clanging moment aged 27 when you realise you would rather die on the dole than ever show up again at a place where people have titles to tell you how important they are, and get massively het up over bits of paper so abstract they might as well be made of clouds.

The pathologic ambition might not quite be like Madonna turning up in Times Square after demanding the cabbie take her to the centre of everything, but more a dogged, desperate determination to pursue the only thing you can spend hours of your life doing without breaking out in hives.

Obviously, to break the monotony and lonely slog, you need massive episodes of debauchery. Also, everyone knows you require a whole wardrobe full of personal demons, because sane happy people make rubbish writers — unless you’re into self-help books, in which case I have nothing more to say to you. An addiction to dangerous drugs, a hopeless dependency on gin, a monster pill habit — these are all excellent for converting into writing, providing you don’t die.

Back in your lonely writing cell, the loyal pets are deposited on various rugs around your feet, listening patiently to you clicking away at the keyboard, and wondering how much longer before you push back your chair and take them for a walk. More than loyal, they are heroically stoic, spending much of their lives staring at your ankles and sighing deep, bored doggy sighs. As for a neglected spouse, forget it. Imagine the hassle. “Not now darling, I’m busy. Until at least next February. Shut the door on your way out.”

The years of boring hard work means that you go into your work room in your twenties and don’t come out again until the undertaker carries you away in a box. It is a life sentence of talking to yourself and staring blankly into space. Obviously, this makes you completely unemployable and kills off most of your social skills. But very occasionally, something good happens.

“I’ve sold my book!” I tell the children excitedly, in a rare trip down the stairs to the family area of the house. Without looking up from Come Dine With Me, one of them says, “Oh great, that’s nice”, and the other says, “Yeah, what’s for dinner?”.