For the first time in, I believe, three months, I am not writing this blog on a train. I am not even on a railway station, am not being dragged up a hill by packhorses, am not – beyond the usual inhaling and exhaling and one of my twitches – in motion at all. I am, in fact, safely ensconced in my For-People-With-Bad-Backs Writing Chair. You may, in fact, already know The Chair from a number of newspaper features in which it has taken centre stage. It is galling to be outshone by a jumped-up piece of office furniture-turned-black-leather-media-whore. Then again, I have to admit that The Chair is considerably more photogenic than I am. It is glowing with smugness beneath me, even as I type. Either that, or it has hitherto unguessed-at properties and I should see if I can find the manual again.

Meanwhile, I am currently going through what we might call a period of acclimatisation. I have spent most of this year doing what more and more writers do more and more – battering around the globe to promote the books, perform in a variety of ways and generally earn the money for which I do not, as it happens, write – but, then again, money can be exchanged for many goods and services I enjoy and so I find it handy. My novel sedentary condition means I can get used to having more that five shirts, having access to all my books and having to dust and make my own bed, rather than expecting room service to break in and do that while I'm trying to sneak a lie-in. I have, of course, become immediately and boringly ill – sinuses, neck, ears – simply because my body has resentment issues to work out, but I can make myself chicken soup as a consolation and mainly my circumstances are unusually convenient, if achy. Until the start of August I will continue to stay at my very own personal address, having baths whenever I want to and being near the park in case I suddenly need to sit in among the daisies. Daisy-sitting could be a hobby of mine, who knows – I no longer remember my hobbies, but I do like to keep on the look out in case one turns up.

Not that I am unbusy. I am now in the run-up to the Edinburgh festival and so I have rehearsals for the show almost every day. This year I am blessed with a director (rehearsals would be slightly solipsistic without one) and a stage manager/lighting chap, so they're handling many problems I wouldn't understand, but I am still having to deal with the design and arrangement of items such as posters and programmes and flyers. Once again, room service has not come to my rescue. In my downtime, when I'm not tweaking at the script, I have a radio play to poke with a stick and much research to digest.

Part of the last fortnight's rush and chaos has been down to research. Naturally, as an author of fiction, I am quite literally paid to make things up, but I still need research. Contexts have to be legitimised, characters have interests and occupations which need to be filled with credible detail, variations of geography or time period will throw up all kinds of questions and I will have to dig about for all kinds of answers. For any given novel, I'll spend around three years – on and off – pondering and picking at worries and researching before I ever write a word.

Apologies if that sounds like the kind of writer's confession – I always write my second draft in the sweetest little cabin above Lucerne… – which tends to make me bilious. Fiction takes research and I take my time over it, 'cos I'm slow to digest things, okay? That's all I mean.

The research I prefer, the type with which I am comfortable, involves me sitting in my study surrounded by a ziggurat of books at which I munch away until they give in. Sadly, if something doesn't appear to be in any book, anywhere – and many things I seem to need for the next novel are ridiculously arcane – then I have to seek out free-standing human beings and pester them exactly when I am unable to articulate a description of what I don't have and can't understand. Would you let a random scribbler into your premises and then put up with them basically describing a void, the dimensions and angles surrounding a nothing, while waving their arms a bit too much? I know I wouldn't. And I'm only ruining these people's afternoons because they're experts – so this isn't just a theft of time, it's a theft of expert, well-informed time.. for which I can't pay, because paying is rude and stops a favour being a favour, but you have to bring them something… but what do you bring someone who earns – say – ridiculously more than you do …? Do you obsess for weeks trying to figure out what they might like …? You'll then feel slightly grubby if that works… or do you take a flyer and get it wrong…? You'll then feel thuggish… And if you see them again, should you give them books ? You write books… but what if they don't like your books, or books at all…? and if you sign the books, that'll mean people feel bad when they dump them in the Oxfam shop – plus, that's a bit up yourself, isn't it, foisting your own signed books on people? But not signing them might seem rude…. And what if they run over the time they said they'd give you…? Do you interrupt, do you let them go on, do you cry? If they really nail something magnificently, are you allowed to kiss them on the forehead? What if you're bellowing because they're deaf, but they haven't said so, but they are… is that rude, or just audible? I have spent a number of fretful hours lately, sitting on patient strangers' sofas and feeling bad, bad, bad about myself.

I can only say that the strangers have, so far, always provided at least sweeties, if not cakes and tea (I clearly look under-fed) and have been ridiculously pleasant. I have been hugged, I have been kissed, I have been allowed to play with dogs and I have been given slivers and lumps and handfuls of insight that I sincerely hope I'll be able to boil down into a form I can absorb and use and not spoil too appallingly. And there are few things finer than listening to folk who are at the top of their game enthusing about the things they know and care about. (I vaguely remember that kind of thing being quite frequently broadcast on telly and the radio at one point, but I may be mistaken…) It's good sometimes to have your mind race alongside someone else's, clinging on for dear life, before eventually something goes twang in your limbic area and you fall over happy, while they lope off, hardly out of breath. So thanks to everyone who's helped so far – you know who you are. And you have made me feel good, good, good about my species. Onwards.