There exists a fascination between writers about how their peers spend their time, as if comparison of several writers’ schedules would reveal some kind of optimum creative timetable. Combine that with the wealth of books on how to write and proliferation of degrees and MAs on screenwriting, and it’d seem we’re arriving at a Golden Age of Scriptwriting, when every question of how to create, to structure, to rewrite and to network for fun and profit is laid out for us. And then Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook between them concocted Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale, and blew all that airbrushed and posed nonsense out of the water by lifting the lid on what goes into making the BBC’s most popular show.

For that reason alone, for knocking all that neat theory into a cocked hat and instead revealing the chaos and uncertainty and anguish and chainsmoking at the heart of one of British tv’s biggest ever success stories, Davies and Cook deserve serious applause. It’s galling to come across teenagers talking about three act structure, and this substantial volume is a corrective rejoinder to the notion that the process of writing can be simply explained.

It’s reassuring to me that the heart of creativity remains mysterious. Oh, there are certain rituals one can perform to make one feel more in the mood to create; heuristics that can be used to manipulate all kinds of source material into the fundamentals of stories; truisms that can help bash concepts into shape.

And all of those are fantastic in convincing the creator that s/he has something worth creating. But there comes a point when you realise that there’s a distinction between those notions that are technically creative, and the ones you really want to commit heart and soul to. And that’s the truth: not all ideas are equal.

It may well be that someone else could work wonders with something you’ve come up with, but that you’re not — now at least — the person to do it justice. I knew there was a fine novel to be written about the cosmonauts who went up into space in the Soviet era and came down when the Berlin wall had crumbled…but knew that I wasn’t the one to write it. My psychological thriller though…I’ve mentioned it before but not gone into detail because I know this is one I can really do justice and wouldn’t want some bastard swiping the main conceit before I got the chance to realise it.

Those are my idiosyncrasies then, some of them. And Russell T. Davies takes us through hundreds of his own in this recounting of the emails he exchanged with Benjamin Cook while developing the fourth series of Who. Davies comes across variously as lazy, callous, uncaring, and more and you know what? Good for him. This book is an unpolished account of what it feels like to be at the top of your game, and confirms some truths that are never addressed in the rarified corridors of universities where screenwriting is studied.

Fact: creativity and procreativity are linked, and there really is a sense of horniness about coming up with ideas. Fact: you’ll go through all sorts of weird states of consciousness developing stories, dialoguing, coming up with character arcs and the like, so it’s no great surprise that you might find yourself chugging cigarettes in the small hours and peeling off your nicotine patches. Fact: the story really does come first if you’re at all true to yourself, and anything resembling human connections take second place while that story is being hatched.

Oh, you can try and build your life to hide these inconveniences from your loved ones, but if you’re at all true to your convictions — and like Russell T Davies, charged with bringing in a whole series as its chief architect — then please note that writing is an all-consuming passion. If you haven’t felt that, if you’re not prepared for the fact that this is a way of life and not just a means of occupying you on a full or part time basis, if you reckon it’s something you can just fit in around five aside matches and the day job, then in all likelihood writing isn’t for you. And anyone who doubts that — well, they’ve now got a kilo of densely written hardback by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook to brush aside.