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 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.

I had to do things to myself on the page that had been done to me in real life. I had to try and drown myself in the bath. You have to do that. And the impulse is to rescue yourself and to spare the reader, but I can't rescue myself. And why should I spare the reader when nobody spared me? It's telling people what happened.

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.

I could never do just one thing, but everything I do is in the direction of stories. Sometimes writing them, sometimes showcasing them, sometimes letting people see them.

Memory implies that there is some static time and place you can go back to, whereas if you relive it by trying to put yourself back in that context, its more nuanced, less black and white. More traumatic, but also more exciting. When I knew I had to write about things that would be painful, I put off doing it for ages. But then eventually the fear of not doing it becomes greater than the fear of doing it.