Writing a Booker Prize winning novel is not something that happens overnight. For Douglas Stuart it was the culmination of more than 12 years of writing on themes remembered from his childhood and youth in Glasgow.

The New York based Glaswegian said he didn’t set out to write a book that would be published, never mind win the most prestigious literary prize in the UK.

Speaking to the Glasgow Times, from his home in the USA, he explained how it came about.

He said: “I had been writing scraps and scraps for years but I sat down to write it in earnest in 2008 and I had this book that felt like it was burning to get out of me, and so I sat down and wrote these scenes as they came to me.”

The result was Shuggie Bain, the heart-breaking story of a boy growing up gay in Glasgow, with an alcoholic single mother, and the trials they face.

Glasgow Times: Glasgow's other Booker winner, James Kelman Glasgow's other Booker winner, James Kelman

The tale developed from what was in his head to words on a page and he explains how that happened.

He said: “They came in a chronological order, I started on what became chapter 13 and then what was chapter 22 and 24.

“I envisioned the book, as I have history in visual arts and textile design, I saw them as cinematic scenes, like these moments on their own.

“So, I sat down without knowing the full form of the book or how it would go and just wrote and wrote and wrote as things came to me and I wanted to put them on a page.”

By the time he finished a first draft, he said he had 900 A4 pages, which he reckoned would have been a book of around 1600 pages.

He said: “It would be a big book. Then it was about refinement and distilling. I worked on the book for about ten years and I just loved immersing myself in Glasgow in the 80s.”

While established authors can devote their whole working life to writing he had a demanding full-time job in one of the busiest, high pressure industries in one of the busiest cities in the world.

He said: “I worked in fashion during the day so I would go to the studio at 8 o’clock in the morning then come home at sometimes nine or ten at night. It was a long day New York is a very demanding town.”

Not all of the writing process is about sitting down in front of a keyboard for hours on end with endless cups of coffee.

He said: “The characters feel very real to me and so I liked spending time with them.

“All day I would be running dialogue in my head, I would be thinking about the characters, I would write on my lunch break and in the early mornings when I was on the train.

Glasgow Times:

“So, I had to fit writing around the margins of my life. That’s part of the reason why it took ten years to write. The other part was I just loved writing it. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t know where it was going.”

Publication wasn’t the overriding aim and he didn’t have a target market or specific audience in mind, which he feels provided a greater freedom to express his characters truly.

He said: “So, I never wrote for New York gays, I never wrote for literary circle gays. I wrote only for Agnes and Shuggie and for Leek and Catherine.

“Sometimes that allowed me to be really brave and put things on a page that maybe other writers would think ‘oh maybe can’t say that.’ but there’s a dignity in doing that.

“If you think about the reader and not about the characters then it’s the readers’ feelings you take into account and not really what happens to it.

“It was hard for women and it was hard for young gay kids and for people with addiction. You have to be honest about it.”

And he wasn’t sticking to a learned process of how you should write a book. His background and training was in art and fashion, not writing or literature.

He said: “Part of writing by myself for ten years in secret, was I don’t come from a creative writing background, I don’t have an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in creative writing so I’d never expected the book to be published.

“It wasn’t a need for me at the beginning. It was just a need for me to write the story and if I was the only person to ever read it then that was ok. It was about memorialising these characters and this time and that allowed me to write for the characters and not for the reader. “

Douglas Stuart is only the second Scot, after James Kelman, also from Glasgow, to win the Booker Prize.

However, he hopes the award will help shine a light on other talented Scottish writers and that him being based in America will help open up opportunities in a wider market for fellow Scots.

He added: “I’m always trying to fly the flag for Scottish voices around the world.”

He said: “I think it’s a time to celebrate Scottish voices in general.

“James Kelman and I might have won the award but there are so many other urgent Scottish powerful voices every single day, Jenni Fagan, Graham Armstrong, Kirstin Innes, Donald S Murray, Graham Macrae Burnet.

Glasgow Times: Stuart now lives in New York Stuart now lives in New York

“A prize is an important thing but it shouldn’t overshadow the power of writing that is happening elsewhere.”

The next chapter for Douglas Stuart is publication of his second book which should be out sometime in the next couple of years.

Titled Loch Awe, he returns to Glasgow and to some familiar themes for the tale.

Douglas said: “I wanted to focus on a queer love story about two boys falling in love but are separated by sectarian gangs, by housing schemes and territorial lines. It’s about masculinity and what it means to ‘man up’.”