Who says a writer's life isn't fraught with danger?
Blizzards, back injury, not to mention extreme deadline surfing. It's a wonder I'm not screaming like Simon Armitage

AL Kennedy writing in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 March 2009 12.40 GMT

Author pic, Elsa McLaren

A cold coming ... driving through snow. Photograph: Dan Chung

Satan's Cakes – there are just moments ... in fact, there are just weeks. Like the last one. Some idiot manages to arrange that, during a single seven-day period, I should magic up 20 minutes of new stuff for two comedy gigs, do said gigs, learn an hour of new stuff for the show about writing, perform said show, perform a reading, scamper out to Broadcasting House for two wee radio thingies, write a couple of bits for the papers and, meanwhile, keep hitting a play with a stick and trying to think of an idea for a story which in some way reflects the future of Scotland – beyond the fact that it may exist in Scotland during what will be the future, relative to my current position in the middle of an appalling now.
As the idiot in question was me, I've decided I really do need to get a new employer. I am not seeing eye-to-eye with the management. Then again, I only hired me because there was no one else who'd work here.

Oh yes, and I also ended up having to find – on zero notice – a cover image for the next book, this being faintly important, given that people do judge books by their outer furnishings, despite generations of advice to the contrary. No doubt they also force-feed eggs to their mothers' mothers and leap without looking – the mad rascals.

Getting back to those comedy gigs – the Edinburgh date was dandy (at The Stand, always a pleasure) and the headliner, Jo Enright, was grand as ever. Tuesday was then brought to a more than averagely bracing close by a lashing blizzard/wet snow/black ice combination hidden on the high ground between Edinburgh and Glasgow. This added the thrilling and frequent possibility of slewing wildly while being tickled by Death's whiskers. Happily, MC Susan Calman – who was driving us both home – showed the dogged determination of Gene Hackman in The French Connection. Propped up on several cushions and with boxes tied to her feet (she is slightly diminutive) she peered under the steering wheel, gritted her tiny teeth and quite frankly saved our lives on several occasions. I'd have been pulled over in a lay-by and crying within minutes if I'd been in charge and I feel my response to 4x4 number seven overtaking us and blanketing the windscreen with blinding slush would have been simply to faint and hope I woke up in hospital. One of the many reasons why I no longer drive.

Colm Tóibín has already highlighted the apparently amazing fact that writing books isn't a constant giddy whirl of sherbet and dancing – but at least the typing part of the process is generally conducted indoors and in grindingly solitary safety. Now that authors are expected to travel more than drug mules – helplessly bouncing between readings, festivals, book groups and possibly freestyle wrestling – we do find ourselves in increasingly perilous situations. As I sped, occasionally sideways, towards Glasgow I was haunted by memories of a similarly hellish nocturnal drive in Tasmania: twitching, oozing road kill heaped on every verge and a chauffeuse who admitted – once she'd bagged the driving and set off – that substance abuse had removed her peripheral vision and sometimes gave her flashbacks.

She then failed to see other cars, road signs and, very probably, anything on this earth for hour after grisly hour, meanwhile chatting and singing merrily – mainly to people who weren't there – as I sank into a fugue state and Simon Armitage started screaming like a girl.

Read the rest of Kennedy's entertainign column at The Guardian online.