The past couple of years have been both enjoyable and unnerving, sometimes at the same time. It was amazing to have worked away on my novel Ancillary Justice and then have people react to it so strongly. And then I won some of the biggest awards in science fiction – not just the Hugo, but also the Nebula and the Arthur C Clarke. I used to have daydreams of selling tonnes of books and having a mantelpiece full of awards. But that was just an outrageous fantasy …

How did I come to dream up this big, complicated, bleak universe, thousands of years into the future? Well, actually, I did it for fun – something I thought everyone did, but that I now know is not quite true.

I’ve always enjoyed making up stories, especially when I was bored and just sitting around. It got really serious after the children came along. Obviously babies are adorable, but they’re not very intellectually satisfying. It was great being at home with the children, but after a while I began to feel as if my brain was leaking out of my ears. So I would make up stories, and just kept adding more and more detail. My writing reached the stage when I thought, should I take this seriously? Is this the moment? I would go to the library and read everything – history books, the lot – and just put in anything cool I came across. Sometimes it wouldn’t fit, and I’d turn it around in my head until I found the right place.

Does getting an award make you happy? When you imagine yourself at the ceremony, you’re always so eloquent and gracious. In reality it’s kind of awkward. I always tell myself that all I have to do is walk up on stage and say my lines. But when I went to get the Hugo I was lucky not to fall over. I have absolutely no memory of walking up those stairs.

One day I discovered that a couple of people had written “fanfic” – stories of their own based on my characters. Just the thought of people thinking that hard and deeply about something I’ve written is incredible. I haven’t read them – it’s probably psychologically healthy for me to stay out of it – but just the idea is so pleasing. I can’t tell you how flattering it is.

Writing does make me happy. Yes, it is true that in some ways it is very much like bashing your head against a typewriter for 24 hours. But it’s also a lot of fun. You spend a fair amount of time staring into space because nothing is falling into place. But when it does, it’s great. And if you’re the sort of person who likes to find out about things it’s a fantastic job, whether it’s fishing, ancient Egypt or museums. If you want to spend the afternoon lying on the sofa reading comic books, this, too, can count as work.

Has it made my whole family happy? To be honest, I don’t absolutely know what my kids think about all this. At 14 and 18, they’re at an age where they’re too cool to tell me. But every now and then I pick up something. Last year my son was being very blase, but then I went to a parent/teacher conference and the teacher told me: “Oh yes, he’s told us all about your book.”

When I need to get away from my desk I tend to take walks or go places. I also like to bead – working with beads to make jewellery. There’s a bead shop not far from my house and it’s really dangerous; you pop in for a couple of beads and before you know it you’ve spent $100. It’s an all-consuming hobby. Part of the pleasure is that fairly quickly you can do really cool things with colour and shape. I’ve even started dressing differently – you know you’re a beader when you buy a new dress to go with something you’ve made. It’s a perfect hobby because it’s so physically different from writing; it keeps just part of your brain occupied.

Keeping happy and calm in the past turbulent year has been kind of rough at times. I’ve done a lot of travelling and the second book has been released just as I’m finishing the third. I realise now that I have to say no to all the travelling – it’s too much – and I need to step back and get my mind back on track. I need my home life back. The trick is to keep things in balance.

Perhaps I should say that writing makes me gratified, rather than happy. “Happy” sounds kind of light-hearted. I’ve come to feel that people really need to build, to make things. There’s this false division between people “who are creative” and people “who aren’t creative”, but I don’t think there is anyone who isn’t creative. It’s an important part of pretty much everyone. Art is not specifically for artists. Everybody needs to make things in their life.

Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword are published by Orbit. She was talking to Bibi van der Zee