Writing is a mainstream profession these days. Where once the sound of hammers on steel from the factories assaulted your ears, now it's the clack-clack of computer keyboards. The West of Scotland was once the shipyard of the world. But now all that endeavour has come into the home. Towering vessels of imagination leap from the page like Cutty Sark on the southern trades. Slowly, your ocean-going novel takes shape on slipway 29B.
Scottish writers have much in common with their ship-building ancestors. A warp drive of prose that Montgomery Scott could never quite coax out from his dilithium crystals. It's the working-class upbringing honed on the streets kickin' a ba', a comprehensive desire for knowledge, an unconventional turn of the pen, bantered words spoken with the passion of a one-night lover, and a taste for the bottle that loosens the greys. It's been proven without doubt. A pissed writer stumbling around in the night, a sober editor on a mission by sun-up. It means calling the boss before 8 a.m. because you're on another planet today.
So more and more people like us identify themselves as writers – or alcoholics. Maybe it's not the first statement you'd make if Waterstones remains untroubled by your creation, but in the company of like-minded addicts you'll stagger to your feet and pronounce with sober sincerity: 'My name is Wilson, and I'm a writer.'
Breaking through the concrete ceiling into Legacy publishing is very difficult, I must warn you. Harder than welding half-a-ton of steel onto the side of a battleship. Authoring five or ten excellent novels isn't enough for these elite bastards. You need a 'media profile' and even then literary agents and publishers will treat you like a fart in a lift unless you write something extraordinary. So take it from me – because I'm a nobody – fuel up in the evening with a line of your favourite drams and keep your fingers to the board.
Dinnae bother wi' the editin' in the mornin', ye'll jist take aw the juice oot of it.
Trying to be somebidy will gie ye a sair heid, so dinnae sweat it. Be yourself, write words that inspire, words that sing off the page like Death is standing next to you, waiting impatiently. But learn the ropes. Write until you can pitch in your sleep, or in the shower, or scribble on the back of a fag packet while changing a nappy, doing the crossword, and solving a global crisis that's defeated nations and Donald Trump. Writing is a skill to be honed. Tell everyone you're an author.
And dinnae be scared to make a cock of yersel' in front of others. To know you're truly Scottish, it is mandatory.
Wilson B Smillie
January 2018