Proof pages - nearly the finished article, but not quite. They're a good sign: they mean your book is almost done, almost ready to pack up its things, get published and amble out to meet the reader. But, then again, proofs are also a source of almost primal panic for the writer. If your proofs are awful, wrong, badly-spelled, oddly-italicised and otherwise dysfunctional, they are a very real demonstration of both your complete powerlessness within the editing process and your witless lack of talent within the writing process. They alarm, containing, as they do, all manner of peculiarities and absurdities which have been added by strangers for no clear reason, along with the plethora of screw-ups which are utterly your own fault. How did you miss that non-agreeing verb? Did you ever know what this final sentence means? Will that character stand up to even the most cursory examination? Why did you ever think this was any use? Can anything within the compass of your meagre abilities be done to remedy this papery hellsbroth of shit? You try to hope so – tinkering with and slashing at your proofs: these representing your final chance of day-saving activity, or even just salvaging a couple of decent paragraphs.

This week, I went through the proofs of ALK book number 12 – a collection of short stories. (Yes, yes, there is very little point in putting out such a thing, but I like the form and my publisher currently still supports it.) I have looked at previous sets of proofs four times already and fully expect to do so at least once more. On each occasion, some corrections have been made, some have been missed and new errors have blossomed like dry rot in supporting beams. (And I know I'm missing other errors: I always do.) Queries have been repeated, answered, repeated, answered, added to, answered ... By the proof stage I usually detest whatever volume is in hand, anyway – if only because of the simple repetition involved in rewriting. Try saying bassoon, over and over again. Now try writing it over and over again. After a while it seems a meaningless and vicious imposition on your psyche, doesn't it? Now imagine repeating that hideous and alienating grind with 80,000 other words (this book does not contain the word bassoon) over and over again – same thing. Only worse. Eventually every syllable sounds like the thunk of a small wooden ladle, swishing about in whatever appalling soup my skull now contains instead of a brain. My feelings towards this particular book have vaulted the usual paranoid, obsessive-compulsive reflexes and have achieved an absolute loathing I am surprised I can sustain. Don't get me wrong, the damn thing is the best that I can do, I wouldn't impose it on the book-loving public, otherwise. It is simply depressing when the best I can do leaves me nauseous.

Then again, that could be the pills. I still have my mildewed ear and am on my fourth course of antibiotics – this week's supply are blue and cure malaria, cholera, brucellosis, psittacosis and syphilis. Apparently my doctor feels I've been up to no good in a swamp with livestock during the 18th century. The corrosive effects of the tablets mean I have to move around for an hour after taking them, lest they should burn through my inner tubing in bad ways – which means an hour of typing-time is lost every morning in nervous pacing and prophylactic gyrations. I then ease into the day's apocalyptic headache – this may be a side-effect, it may be a new hobby - and get down to work. Radio 3 wanted more essays, an actor wants a play and I want a lovely assistant, frankly – if only to answer my mail; harassing him sexually would have to wait until I can stand up without the room undulating.

The essays are done, the play is half done (ish) and I've generally managed to scrub some of the worrying chalk scrawls off my deadline blackboard (that's not an ugly metaphor – I do actually have a deadline blackboard). Still, I've lost about a week to sick days and general lassitude. And while it is good to be working at all in these perilous times, mainly I'm spending less time being grateful and more trying not to fret about the self-employed person's great enemy – long-term illness.

There does seem to be an enduring expectation among the reading public that writers will be pale and skinny and dead by 45. As a writer who is pale, skinny and heading in that direction fast, I could find this alarming. I know that we are meant to thrive on tubercular episodes, mysterious injuries and plenty of time in bed, but I also know that history is littered with authors who happened to be ill and happened to be unable to stop working and get better, because they liked eating food and being sheltered from the elements by associated bill-paying and purchasing – this unending cash-generating work making them iller, and then dead. Their more or less Romantic decline wasn't a lifestyle choice, it was a clustering of sad necessities. And it's not so long ago that chronic back pain was making me wonder if the writing life was going to be even remotely tenable for someone who could no longer lift their arms. So my ear is beginning to worry me – and so I'm taking the Easter weekend off. Those of you reading this who are also writers, may wish to do likewise. Onwards.