It was rhythmic, it was insistent. It was the postman with a wide, flattish cardboard parcel and I knew straight away what it was: the printed proofs of my new book. I ripped open the parcel like one of those strongmen who used to tear telephone books in half.

Luckily I wasn’t strong enough to tear my book in half because that would have been a redraft too far and anyway, I’ll leave it to the readers to decide if they want to rip it up or not.

I held the proofs in my hands like sacred texts which, in one sense, they were. The proofs are like the almost-final draft of the book. You’ve written the book, you’ve gone through the book and you’ve rewritten the book a few times.

Ian McMillan's new book is out later this year.

The publisher has suggested more rewrites and you’ve thought of a few more yourself. A first copy of the book arrived, like this one in loose-leaf form, a few weeks ago. I went through it and made lots of changes. The publisher did the same, and now they’ve sent me a final proof to look over.

The book is one that I worked on over the first and second lockdowns when I couldn’t go out on the road doing gigs. I had to do something and so, at the suggestion of the publisher, I wrote a book about the coast, specifically about my memories of the coast.

I’d told the publisher that I wasn’t very good at writing long texts but that I enjoyed writing shorter pieces, like this column. We agreed that I would write 50 essays each of a thousand words, thus adding up to a book.

It is coming out in June and it’s called My Sand Life, My Pebble Life and there I am, sitting reading the final set of proofs. You can tell by the look on my face that the prose isn’t quite as good as I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be as rhythmic and insistent as the postman’s knock earlier but instead lots of it feels as flat as the parcel the proofs came in.

Now, I’m experienced enough to know that this will always happen to me when I reread something I’ve written. I spot all the mistakes and the lines I almost repeat. If you were an academic, you’d call them tropes, I guess.

For example, I was horrified to note that I’d written variations of the phrase “the sky was the colour of…” far too many times. It was the colour of an antique shop. It was the colour of a discarded vest. It was the colour of abandoned ideas. I was cross that I hadn’t noticed them before but relieved that I had another chance to make the book better. I spent a day crossing out and rejigging.

The publisher emailed to ask if the proofs were done. I said I needed a few more days. Or a few more weeks. Or maybe I could just start again?

Not this time, they said. Ah well, back to the crossing-out board!

The perils of wiring a book and all the hassles that it brings - Ian McMillan