How I finished writing my novel

In the end, I threw my mobile phone into a sack of Chudley’s dog biscuits. It was the only way I could finish the book. The bag of Chudley’s was in a cupboard so it didn’t even matter that I hadn’t silenced the phone before I threw it in there. At most, all I could hear as I hammered away on the keys of my laptop was a faint beep every few minutes as everyone in the universe texted me to say how disgusted they were that I wasn’t answering.

Result: finished book. In one day. That’s all it took. Six months I’ve been labouring over this novel with my phone beeping beside me, like a baby sparrow with its needy little beak open. But in the space of one blissful day when my phone was inside a sack of dog biscuits I managed to get it done.

And with the book finished, I could turn my attention to all the matters I have only been able to half-deal with for so long. A person writing a book is not really a functioning person at all. It’s a person with half their head in another place. It’s a half person, a person paying half attention to everything and getting everything at least half wrong. Chief among the things I have got half wrong recently is the issue of the dormer windows.

You may remember I found a planning notice on the lamppost outside my flat announcing the installation of roof lights and dormer windows in the flat upstairs.

It turns out I imagined the words dormer windows. It only ever said roof lights. I banged on the neighbours’ door and they explained. No loft conversion was planned, only a vaulted ceiling. Would that be alright? The two brothers looked at me timidly. I had not helped my reputation with my chosen method of entering their home.