Iadore writing. I could sit and scribble for hours, given a little bit of peace and several cups of coffee. Chuck in a digestive biscuit and the odd sandwich and you might not see me for days. But editing? Until recently I couldn’t stand it. Despite the fact I tend to write humour, I’m an introspective, pessimistic perfectionist by nature. In my teens and early twenties, the most well-meant criticism of my writing by friends or family was taken as evidence that I wasn’t Good Enough (or, in my more arrogant moments, that the person reading simply didn’t get it).
In those days, too, the idea of slaving over something that might never be published or even read brought out my inner sloth: I rarely gave anything bar the first three agent-snagging chapters of a manuscript more than a cursory flick through