Do other people’s jobs wake them at three in the morning? It probably depends on how much the job matters and how much harm they can do if they cock it up. Anaesthetists and train drivers, I am willing to guess, experience their fair share of interrupted sleep.

Being a book editor (and mainly fiction at that), I do not hold the sacred vessel of human life in my pencil-hardened fingers, or not literally. But I worry all the time about the manuscripts I am working on because my work has an effect on the hopes, dreams and reputations of people I care about. There is also the future of Australian literature to think about, obviously, and it all gets worse after midnight, when the involuntary groaning starts. Aaaarrgghh flat ending, nnggoorrr weak supporting character, hhhnnn action scenes move like geological time Noooo naff sex words … I haven’t done enough, I’ve done too much … That’s not me in the spotlight, but you wouldn’t know it from the nocturnal angst. If you have ever gone to bed straight after a beef vindaloo and a bucket of cheap shiraz, you will be familiar with the general effect. But it is not all gastric reflux and halitosis. Let me give you a personal account of how fiction editing works.