One of the unforeseen downsides of being an as-yet unpublished writer is that you may receive, if you’ve not already, comments such as, what the hell you are doing with your life with all that reading and …writing nonsense?
Questions like this might have rumbled through the air of the family home, suggesting you spend too much time in your bedroom, locked inside noise-cancelling headphones, reading some dumb magazine about writing, Googling information on an author they’ve never heard of (what are you – a stalker?), and tapping away like a demented woodpecker at a keyboard and hurling bits of screwed-up A4 paper around like confetti. Sound familiar?
(The answer to give, in case you need help, is that it’s pre-match training, and how can anyone become accustomed to being in a state of creative isolation if they’re ill-prepared for being, you know… alone and undisturbed for a few minutes?)