This Modern Writer: Mice, Men, Me by Alan Gillespie

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Every now and then I take time off from real life with the specific intention of dedicating myself to a period of writing. It might only be a day out the office, it might be a week; either way, I am totally up for it. I will write.

I make sure I won’t have to go outside for anything. Plenty of food and drink in the fridge. A pile of favourite old books. A pile of intriguing new books. A stack of vinyl to play through. Lock the door. Unplug the phone. Get everything just so. Time for some serious, intense, manic writing.

And this is what happens:

8.00am
Wake up. Get out of bed. Drag a comb across my head.

8.15am
Get back into bed. Fall asleep.

10.30am
Wake up. Get out of bed. Drag a comb across my head.

10.45am
Boil the kettle. Open the laptop. Turn on the television. Get back into bed.

11.00am
Check emails, glance over the newspaper, sip tea. Open up RedTube. Masturbate furiously.

11.45am
Open up whatever it is I’m working on. Edit the last few paragraphs from the previous day. Write three new sentences. Delete them. Reply to any emails.

12.15am
Get out of bed. Stand under the shower singing a medley of favourite songs. Brush teeth in shower and try not to get toothpaste anywhere sensitive.

12.45am
Get dressed in clothes I’d never actually consider leaving the flat in. Preferably some sort of tartan pyjamas and threadbare socks.

1.00pm
Boil the kettle. Make sandwiches. Watch the news. Read the newspaper online.

2.00pm
Open up whatever it is I’m working on. Write loosely, carelessly. Type more than a hundred words but less than three hundred. Flick wildly between websites, email accounts, newspapers and twitter. Repeat until overall word count reaches a thousand but I’ve no idea what I’ve actually written.

5.00pm
Open up RedTube. Masturbate furiously.

6.00pm
Make dinner. Drink a beer.

7.00pm
Read books until bed-time. Steal ideas to pass off as my own.

Tomorrow will be a better day.



Alan is a twenty five year old male from Fife, Scotland. He won his first poetry competition at the age of ten, for a long-lost verse entitled “Ode to a Baked Potato.” His prize was a board game. By day, he works in a basement for a slightly evil global corporation. By night, he studies on the renowned Creative Writing MLitt at Glasgow University and edits the online journal From Glasgow to Saturn.