If Writing seems Hard Work

I tell myself that writing is not hard work. Bending over in a field picking potatoes all day in the wind and rain, that’s hard work. Trying to sell altruistic ideas to tired commuters outside the tube at rush hour, that’s hard work. Washing, cleaning up, caring and providing for two young children on your own, that’s hard work. Catering for a hundred or so hungry souls with the sun beating down on the marquee and eight gas burners roaring at full throttle, that’s hard work. But sitting down at a keyboard in a warm room with coffee, and a blank screen – that’s just telling stories. Being comfortable with the notion that just maybe, nobody is going to be at all  interested in what you have to say – that’s not hard work. It’s just blowing smoke rings at ghosts.

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