Because I work at other things, whenever I get a chance to write I feel grateful for it. But I learned that sometimes, I couldn't do anything else and I shouldn't plan to do anything that night or the next day. There were times when I was writing something difficult for days or weeks and when I'd finish, I would get up and go out of my shed into the garden and be sick. I had terrible migraines.

I cut a lot of cringy sex stuff and a lot of stuff I thought was too personal. I think secret gardens are very special. I think we all have to have them. I think the secret of memoirs is keeping those parts of yourself off the page, which makes what you do share more valuable.

Scotland has always been independent. We have our own legal system, our own culture; I don't see the issue. We are different and I think we should celebrate those differences within the union. I can see what would be lost, but don't necessarily see what would be gained by breaking away. What does upset me is that I can't vote in Scotland.

The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are very often not really what happened. And as I started to write stuff down, I started to challenge what I thought I knew about myself, my culture, my family, all of it. It was a huge, destroying process that completely took over my life. I just wasn't here, I mean I was physically present, but I wasn't here, I was back in the 1980s.

I am a gay writer, but I am also a Scottish writer and some days a lazy writer, or a funny writer. Being gay is just a part of who I am.

The hardest bits of my book to read were the easiest bits to write because they were the most immediate. Probably because I had never stopped thinking about them on some level. Those bits I was just channelling and those were the most exciting writing days. The bits I found harder were the bits that happen in between, you know, the rest of living. There were whole years, whole houses, that I just got rid of.

You don't realise how much you're holding onto until you start to let go of it. I had had loads of therapy and thought I had come to terms with who I am, but there's something in the process of writing that unlocks other experiences, other emotions and you have to be prepared for that.