The Root of the Root - Chapter 3

"How much of your novel is based on your life?"

I get asked that question about The Root of the Root a lot. When I write, I don't edit as I go along. I just carry on, ploughing through the good, the bad and the goddamn awful. I've always figured that shit words are better than no words. I can make the bad stuff better. Sometimes the bad stuff secretly hides some good stuff. But working like this means that I don't remember some of the stuff that I write. The novel is tens of thousands of words long, some of it written seven years ago. It's impossible for me to remember all the words. And when I finished the first draft, I honestly didn't believe that the novel was about my life, or about me at all.

But then I read it. I printed out the whole thing, sat there and read it. And in parts it was like reading a diary. I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't know that I was going to read about the relationship that completely broke my heart two years ago. I didn't know that I'd fabricated an entire story around my parents (now deleted, for many reasons). I didn't know I'd snuck in lines from my favourite songs, quotes from friends, places that I'd fallen in love with. Places that I'd fallen in love at.

The book isn't autobiographical (it's set under a magic tree, don't be silly). But if you want to know me, read my book. I'm stamped on every single one of the pages, in all of the characters. It's darker than that sometimes. A lot of the book was written whilst I had depression. You can feel that. You can feel that I was feeling the darker chapters. I probably didn't even know at the time. I didn't know that it was going to happen. I don't know that any fiction writer intentionally writes about their life. I certainly didn't. I don't want to put my friends into a story, I don't think it's fair to do that. But you can't help it. People I know will recognise places, conversations names. Hopefully they'll see that it's just borrowing. It's not really about them.

I've got used to seeing the hardest relationship of my life staring in front of me. One of the things I'm most sad about. The only reason I didn't delete that part was because it's good. It's fiction now. I took all the emotion and turned it into something else. But it still makes me feel sick when I read it. It probably always will.

And then I remember that it's not really real anymore. It's just fiction. It's just words making stories. The whole book is about stories, and the past and how your past create stories for other people. It would be crazy if there weren't some of my stories in there.

The final piece I'm publishing online is live now. You can go and read it here. If you want to read the rest, then you could always suggest to someone at Harper Collins that they have a gander. Enjoy. Let me know what you think of the final part.

Flickr image from fauxto_digit's photostream.