Writers

No, I couldn’t be a writer. It’s all made up, isn’t it? I don’t like to read fiction. What’s the point of it? I prefer something real: a biography or a book about science. How do they do it anyway? Where do they think that stuff up from?
Let me ask you this – how can anyone do that? What worries me is how much violence there is in all those books. These people who write that stuff, there’s something wrong with them. At some level they must want to do those things. They think about them. I don’t want to even think about hurting people. They are sick. Or frightened, neurotic. Maybe that’s it – they think the world’s full of psychos ready to dismember them. Is it a competition or what? Who can think of the worst killer? They should have certificates on those things. They are worse than films, if you think about it. Mind you certificates would just encourage youngsters to read them. Don’t want that, do we?
They must be puddled, writers. There they sit in their studies, making up conversations between made-up people so that they don’t have to do a real job, talk to real people. What’s that about? Most of them have never done any real work, have they. Take me, for instance. I do a bit of decorating for some extra cash. Now that’s real work. Course I can’t work full-time now, not since the accident. But the sick doesn’t go far, does it? And I get to meet a lot of people. You can tell a lot about people by how they do their houses up. I’d hate to know a writer. They must be watching you all the time. To base a character on you, I mean. Something you do would turn up in one of their books. Or they’d have you chopping someone up, or chopped up by some weird psycho they have based on themselves. They say serial killers all torture animals as kids, someone ought to research writers – bet they do too.
That’s another thing – all that “research” they do. They are so up themselves. I mean, we’ve all got hobbies. What you don’t know about Man U isn’t worth knowing. But we don’t call it research, do we? They could write a proper book about some of these things – histories and such. Or do something useful with the knowledge, like go on Mastermind. But do they? Do they fuck, they just use it to tart up their stories.
Then there’s sex. They have to have a sex scene, don’t they? If you are the poor sod married to a writer what are you going to think? Either it’s a description there for the world to see of what you get up to in bed, or worse: it’s something they’ve been fantasising about. Can’t see how you can live with a writer. It’s part of the job, they tell you. I have to imagine their sex lives to make the characters real. My editor suggested I write this one in. Bollocks. Mind you, some of them have clearly never been near a woman. Nothing like that ever happens. Probably gayers.
No, they do my head in, books. I start reading them and I’m okay, but after a bit I start feeling weird. If the bloke’s done something wrong, I feel guilty. I dream about it. It takes me a few minutes to remember that I haven’t killed anyone. I don’t like it. In a biography you know it’s someone else, a real person. In a film, it’s obviously not me either. But when I read a book I get confused, I feel all the things the characters feel. It’s horrible. Then, what’s worse - I start looking at people in the street. Normally it’s simple. She’s fit, she’s a minger. He’s a mate, he’s a fucking bastard. But I start thinking about their lives. People I don’t know from fucking Adam. I start wondering what their secrets are, why they look happy sometimes, , what they dream about. Fuck that.
I prefer a film, me. Sex, violence and a car chase. Who reads that stuff anyway? You see them, head in a book, oblivious. It’s pure escapism. They can’t face the real world. They’d rather spend it in a cosy fantasy land where everything turns out okay and anyway it doesn’t matter cos it isn’t real. Fucking hobbits and that. At least with a decent book, like Robbie’s biography or something, you’re learning something, aren’t you. It’s actually real.


Well, I might have put a few pounds on since the accident. I mean I can’t exercise as much as I used to. Still the wife doesn’t complain. She’s no fucking waif though either. Mind you, who wants to fuck one of them. You’d be scared to break them. Some of them go too far the other way. I mean, that Jordan, that’s just bloody grotesque. Wouldn’t say no though, eh?

I did some work for this writer once – bit of painting. He needed his patio doors doing. I have to admit, he was working every day when I got there at 8 am. He had one of those laptop computers. Music on full blast, loads of strong coffee. Bastard didn’t even have any milk, I had to bring my own.
Anyway, I painted his windows and doors. Made a nice job of it, too. Thought nothing more of it. I hardly spoke to the man. There he was, typing on his computer listening to this loud guitar music. It seemed to be the same record over and over. Must have put it on repeat on his CD player. I didn’t recognise it. That indie stuff. Maybe Radiohead or something. Weirdo.
But the wife picked up one of his books. Oh, this was a couple of years later. “Ere, luv – isn’t that the chap who lives up in Wilmslow – that writer you did a job for?” She reads all that stuff. So I said: “Yeah, what about it?” So she bought it and read it. Next thing I know she’s fucking pissing herself laughing. She laughs like a drain, my wife. “What’s so sodding funny?” I asked her. She starts reading it out to me. We were in the car – off to MFI to have a look at some units. The cunt’s only gone and described me, hasn’t he? Only he’s made me sound really thick. Pompous middle-classed twat. Very patronising about the job I did him; he said it was plumbing though. As if he’d ever done a proper day’s work in his life. I was fuming. “Slow down Ed, you’re driving like a nutter.” And I was too. Can’t help it when I’m wound up.
Well, I wasn’t having it, was I? I went round there to have words with him.
“Hello, Ed. What can I do you for?” he says.
“It’s about that book. Where do you get off writing about me like that?”
“Come on. I didn’t use your name. I only based a couple of details on you – the rest was someone else – just stuff I made up.”
“No, it’s me. You made me look daft. He’s stupid.””But you’re not stupid, are you Ed? That proves I wasn’t talking about …”
Well I smacked him one, didn’t I? I wasn’t having that, sarcastic cunt.