Will Self: ‘I write first thing, when I can suspend disbelief in the act of making things up’

The author explains why the morning matters and why he measures his output in 800-word ‘Conrads’

When I’m working on a novel I type the initial draft first thing in the morning. Really: first thing. For preference, I have a cigarette ready-rolled and a coffee percolator loaded the night before; then I simply roll out of bed, fuel up and set to it. I believe the dreaming and imagining faculties are closely related, such that wreathed in night-time visions I find it possible to suspend disbelief in the very act of making stuff up, which, in the cold light of day would seem utterly preposterous. I’ve always been a morning writer, and frankly I believe 99% of the difficulties novices experience are as a result of their unwillingness to do the same. Narrative structure, mise en scene, characterisation − you can’t get to grips with these problems unless you’ve put the words on the page.

So, my rule is I don’t rise from my desk until I’ve done my allotted portion. When I began writing seriously I measured my word counts in “Conrads”, one Conrad being 800 words, which is what the master wrote daily – an output on which he was able to support a considerable establishment, including two housemaids and a chauffeur. Back in the 1990s I could manage two or even three Conrads in a morning, but with age (and possibly the increasing complexity of the work itself), my pace has slowed – and I now manage 1.25 Conrads. (My journalism word rate, by contrast, is 500 words per hour.)

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