Or it feels that way, which is the only explanation for the otherwise baffling and not altogether pleasant transformation of my work life ever since my seventh novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, hit a social nerve and was eventually developed into a feature film. True, publishers routinely supplement their meager publicity budgets with free authorial self-promotion. But the wholesale colonization of my diary by auxiliary activities that haven’t a whit to do with the ostensibly contemplative, hermetical job of a novelist cannot be laid at the feet of poor HarperCollins. A frenzied calendar is my fault. It is the natural consequence of a profound insecurity that, during a dozen long years when I lived a hair’s breadth from having no publisher at all, worked its way into my very bones. That insecurity, some of which is economic, seems to have induced a permanent terror of turning anything down—anything that will make money, fortify my name recognition, or support book sales. And spare me. I don’t need to be told that this indiscriminate, pushover availability is pathetic.

Thus, at a time I desperately need to get my next first draft off the ground, check out my commitments for the next couple of months or so: multiple-hour interviews with Dutch and Belgian periodicals, along with the dreaded photo shoots. Literary festival appearances in London’s Soho, Charleston, Birmingham, Cheltenham, Newcastle, Folkestone, Cambridge, Wapping, and Bali (yeah, yeah, tell us another sob story—but Southeast Asia involves a 17-hour plane trip and a discombobulating seven-hour time difference; I still have to work on more than my tan). A reading of one of my short stories at the Arts Club in London. Dinners with my publisher and editor to discuss a new imprint. Copious radio interviews. A ceremony for the National Short Story Award, for which I’m short-listed—and prizes are a particularly destructive time and emotion suck, since in most cases you don’t win. The delivery of a “sermon” in Manchester, which for an atheist will be a big ask. A formal lecture in Amsterdam, replete with mini author’s tour for the Dutch translation of my last novel. A panel on “storytelling” for Mumsnet. A presentation to prospective supporters of Standpoint magazine, for which I write a monthly column. An “in-conversation” for a medical conference. What already awaits in 2014? A reading at the Royal Academy, a two-week promotional tour of Australia, a six-week teaching residency in Falmouth, events in Muncie, Indiana, and Bath, and invitations, as yet mercifully unaccepted, to festivals in Alberta, Vancouver, Estonia, and Singapore.

I’m concerned that my delivery of this cascade of beaverishness might come across as boasting. On the contrary, it serves as both lament and confession. My scribbled diary is a disgrace. Taken as a whole, my upcoming schedule does not remotely represent the life I signed up for when I was seven years old.

These admittedly elective diversions are all on top of a host of ongoing botherations bound to confront any fiction writer foolish enough to have poked a head above the public parapet: beseechings to blurb other writers’ books (therefore read them). Requests to review other writers’ books (therefore read them—and because reviewers are only paid for their own wordage, these assignments pay about 25 cents an hour; for your trouble, the author will probably hate you). Essays like this one. Solicitations of quotes (free quotes) to fill out other journalists’ articles. Book launch invites. Charity appeals for signed, annotated first editions to be auctioned at tedious galas at which your attendance is expected and for which you have nothing to wear. Interview requests from foreign newspapers, asking you to discourse at length about a novel of which you are not only tired but, said book being two or three publications back and only now coming out in Greek, you don’t even remember. Website and book supplement demands for “your favorite book,” “your five favorite books,” “your ten favorite books,” “the book that changed your life,” “your book recommendations for Christmas,” and “your favorite summer beach reads.” Importunings to judge literary prizes, which means you can’t even win them. I may boycott social networking, but e-mail is bad enough, and for many of my colleagues, Facebook and Twitter must easily leech, as Kazuo Ishiguro would say, the remains of the day.