Being a writer can mean many, many different things. Sometimes, it means hours spent alone, dragging reluctant words from the depths of a troubled mind, forcing ink onto the blank page, one uncooperative phrase after another. Other times, it means acting as ringmaster to a cacophony of uncontrollable characters who fly across the pages with minds of their own, wilfully disregarding your own intentions for them. On occasion it seems almost impossible to stem the flow of pulsing purple prose from your fingertips as hours race by unnoticed, strings of sentences clicking into perfect place like links of literary gold chains.
Other times a writer’s lot will be that of a researcher, chasing down facts to support the inspiration, carefully noting the things that will never make it to the page but must be understood, nonetheless. Writers are the mothers of their works, yet must also be the butchers of the same – and be brave enough to wield the editor’s sabre, even to the most loved of their compositions.
There are times when to be a writer means to be one swathed in rejection and broken dreams, yet still find it within them to take up the pen once more, in spite of the negative tides that cast them time and time again against the rocky shores of disappointment.
But sometimes – on a damp and drizzly Monday in Cambridge, say – being a writer means sitting around in your pants, nursing the remnants of a head cold and watching re-runs of The Sweeney. Because life’s funny like that.
* Top quality line from the endlessly quotable Jack Regan, from The Sweeney
Lucy Brazier 
Oh the life of a writer..!
It’s everything I dreamed it would be!
There are days I wish I could live it… but then my other dream was to be a wife, mother and teacher, which I am also living, so I try to be all writerly when I have the spare moments!!!
Living as many dreams as possible is the way to go, I say 🙂
Trying!!!!
You’re doing great!!
😊
There’s one thing I’m (almost) willing to bet on, that the purple prose will keep flowing from your pen even when you run the inkwell dry.You have a talent for drawing a laugh out of even the most reluctant twonk, but that’s enough about me, let’s get back to you. Sitting around in pants eh. Now you’ve given me a fevered brow how about coming round and mopping it.
xxx Hugs Galore xxx
David, you never fail to bring the biggest smile to my face. I considered pictorial evidence of my good self reclining in pants watching The Sweeney, but thought it too early in the day to inflict images of a young Dennis Waterman on my delightful readers. Nonetheless, I shall pop along with my hankie and attend to your brow!
xxx Giant Hugs xxx