I HAVE been trying to write a novel. I have thought about doing that since 1959, when I sat in a hospital bed after a cartilage operation and commenced writing a western. I still have it. I never did complete it but I can still recall the plot and where I was intending to take it.

It was a key exercise because it brought home to me that I enjoyed writing. Within a year I had caused an outbreak of apoplexy in my home by deciding to change jobs and join the local newspaper.

Some 35 years later, I started a novel but then came a rash of redundancies and staff cuts, so I shelved that and concentrated on what I had wanted to do for years, breaking out into more general features and writing, while retaining the coverage of Watford FC.

I have made the occasional reading forays into fiction. There are so many books and there have been times over the past 40 years when I have decided my writing and imagination are not up to scratch for novels. It is one thing to try and sustain interest over a 2,000-word article based on the facts before you, but another to produce 100,000 words.

A few friends have asked me over the years as to when am I going to write a book? I have been touched by their support, but have been lost trying to pick a subject. Eventually I made up my mind. I was not going to bother: I wasn’t that sort of writer.

No sooner had I decided that, than I began to criticise my negativity. I told myself I had always wanted to write a book only to torpedo the idea by finding excuses not to do it – the fear of likely failure being one of the main ones.

I thought I might write a novel when I retired but then I had The Folly and I do enjoy landscaping and such, out in the fresh air. In addition there were articles to write here and there, and then we started to publish the Watford in the 20th Century series, which involved thousands of extra words.

In fact I have undertaken those every late autumn and winter for the previous three years. So with the completion of that series, I was left without a project. I finished off work on the garden, spent Christmas in Spain, came back to rain and felt a bit aimless.

One Sunday morning I walked into my study and sat down at the computer. I surfed the web, checked emails, emptied the trash-box and realised I was at a loose end. I thumbed through the Watford in the 20th Century Volume 3, and recalled how much I had enjoyed reprising the 1960s.

But that was last year. What now?

“I’ll write a book,” I said to myself. “If nothing else it will be for me. If I fall flat on my face, so be it. I have the time; nothing else is pressing for attention.”

I had a germ of an idea and in two weeks I reached some 35,000 words. I knew where it was heading and felt fairly good about it. I loved the fact there is not the restriction of writing to order and space and you can develop sub-plots etc. I revelled in the change of discipline but then I started to have doubts and began to lose my way.

So I let Ellie read what I had written and she nodded conservatively.

“It’s not going to work, is it?” I said.

“No it is good but you are going to beef it out a bit,” she said in a half-statement, half-question.

“With what?”

“Draw on your own experiences. All books are supposed to be a percentage autobiographical. We lived through the 1960s.”

So I did just that but upon reading the revised chapters she admitted it was hard to be objective as she knew all that had been added. I began to feel there was too much of me in it. I had successfully created three or four personalities, but the main one was becoming too much like me. I wanted him to be a credible human being.

So I went through it again, depersonalising aspects but when I undertook a total word-count, I found I had produced 125,000 words. An ideal length for a first novel is some 20,000 fewer words, I am told.

Cutting it down to around 94,000 words and then adding what was the best of the deletions, proved easier than expected but there was one underlying fact, I was only two-thirds through the ultimate plot.

So I have been depressed, frustrated, exhilarated, thinking it would work only for the doubts to return when it was 95 per cent finalised. I let Ellie read a chapter a day but, as she neared the end of the book, she was insisting I gave her more. She stated she was eager to see how it ended.

So the bottom line is, I have written a book and one person, apart from me, has enjoyed it. So it is a success, in one English-speaking household.

I decided the best way to overcome the fact the plot had not been completed, was to write a sequel. I think I have written about 40,000 words of that as well. I occasionally go back to the original manuscript and tinker with it but the other day I faced facts.

I have started the sequel because, quite simply, although I enjoy writing, I suspect more importantly, it also gives me something to occupy my mind. If it was not for working on the sequel, I would be back at the crossroads, facing the reality that I have to submit the manuscript to someone, somewhere, and face the prospect of a refusal.

I was a little daunted by a quote I saw on the Internet: "Any self-respecting agent can usually tell within 20 or 30 seconds of looking at unsolicited submissions, both the submission and the manuscript, whether the book is any good or not." Giles Gordon, - Writers and Artists' Yearbook 2008.

Rarely have I seen such arrogance, such disregard for objective assessment. Surely they mean 20 to 30 minutes at the very least. It takes me longer to decide if I am going to buy a book, let alone evaluate it. To have something dismissed after 30 seconds, well, that would be disappointing and a blow to the ego, but I know one thing. Whatever the outcome I have thoroughly enjoyed doing it and now I can look my 18-year-old self in the face: bless me.