For a very long time I thought writing might be a thing I could do. Don’t even know why I thought it, before blogs and probably before internets and the dawn of civilisation. But there it was, I read stuff and in primary school I wrote stories (ok, rewrote stories my mum wrote) and in high school I attempted poetry (although doesn’t everyone?). I did an Arts degree and an Honours degree (almost all by hand – I know!). And I wrote a little for fun and painted for fun and generally got around to the point where I considered myself an aspiring author.

And that was the problem. I was aspiring for such a long time I ceased writing at all. Aspiring is a suspect word, it’s a state of wanting to have done or to be without having doing anything much at all. I believe in dreams, yes. And slowly I’m following mine but I no longer aspire to them.

I write. I work. I write.

I sit down at the coal face and string words into sentences that form some semblance of things. Sometimes these things are published, sometimes they end up here, other times they steep on the hard drive for editing and re-editing until they are done. All this is so I don’t consider myself an aspiring writer. I am a writer.