A few weeks before the final, absolute, we-really-mean-it-this-time deadline for my first book, my editor sent me an email that nearly ruined me.

‘I hate to say it,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re going to need another chapter.’

This may not have been a problem for a writer whose only source of material didn’t happen to be their own career failings. And it certainly would have been better dealt with by one who had not already had a number of serious discussions with publishers about how a ‘breezy text design’ and the possible inclusion of drawings might just give them a book whose spine was thick enough to fit a title on.