When I wrote about not having time to write, it did not occur to me that those few paragraphs would turn out to be particularly meaningful. I have been engaged in an email discussion with a friend of mine ever since, talking about how hard life feels and how easy it is to make excuses. It is evident to many who write, and to just about everyone who would like to, that 'I haven't got time to write' is as lame an excuse as 'I am too busy'. Once you start looking at your life arrangements, you quickly realise that there is time to write (especially when you un-busy yourself a little). What then? Do you actually leap from your chair, fist-pumping the air and running to the first available table with a notebook and a pen? No, you probably don't. You are infinitely more likely to find another excuse. This problem with excuses is one that afflicts people across all professions and all industries at one time or other. I do find, however, that writers are incredibly apt at manipulating excuses in order to delay the sitting-down-in-front-of-the-screen moment, when the inner sound of one's own brain being squeezed into creative effort is about as pleasurable as running nails up and down a blackboard for hours. I understand that my words on this, and other such related matters, may occasionally sound as if dictated by a conceited sense of self-assurance built over years of practice, as if I were telling... Read more →