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There is nothing more exciting and nauseating then staring at the little nervous line that smugly blinks in your face on a blank Word page. I know only one way to deal with it: start filling it with words until the little bugger is exhausted and begs for forgiveness. I am a merciful creature most of the time and know when to stop.

I love writing, it give me a sense of purpose and it comforts me because when I try my hand at fiction (I recently started and I am very defensive about it), I can break my everyday boundaries. I have no idea if I am good at fiction, I’m not even sure I want to find out. I do feel somewhat divided about the whole process. On one hand I am doing it for myself, because it gives me pleasure and a way to unburden my mind – I find it so personal (like confession, or seeing a shrink) that I don’t think I can face the sharing and rejection. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be an out of this world experience if what I scribble could mean something to someone?

I love baking, there is nothing more relaxing than making a rich, creamy, melts in your mouth chocolate cake. And it’s the creating of something so delicious from scrap and the sheer appreciation of others that makes me feel like I accomplished greatness. Yes, I am comparing my personal experience of writing with baking sweets. But it is the exact wondrousness of creating things from the bits and pieces that populate my mind that attracts me so much to it. Not to mention the infinite possibilities of thinking up alternative worlds.

There is also another driving force that propels my literary attempts and I’ve been pondering whether to disclose it here or not, because it’s not something easily admitted. OK, so here it goes: real life is …umm, linear (you see how I avoided using the dreaded word “boring” – I have a gift, right?). Nothing much happens in real life and instead of doing something stupid to spice up everyday existence, I find it a lot safer and in fact more fulfilling to create chaos through fiction. I guess I’ve been perverted by watching too many movies and damn those characters, but they’re always up to something (unlike me). So, I am responding to my need for the extraordinary through writing (bad or good, what does it matter in the end, if it makes me happy).

I have very few memories from my childhood, but there is one that has stuck with me through the years. I was about 10 years old and I had to write a very short story (“compunere”) for school. I imagined something about a talking Christmas tree and I showed it to my dad who was impressed and said I should become a writer. This little memory is the only thing that makes me think I could do a good job with fiction. How lame is that? And why did I ignore it when I went to college? I should have majored in lit, not PR. That would have given me the background and confidence to go for it as a life style. Oh well, moving on…

When I think of successful writers, I always idealise them. I like to think of them as a privileged caste, who take life the easy way, at a slow pace that gives them the gift of enjoying its finest moments. I think of nicely lit rooms, with arty decorations and a slick laptop on a mahogany desk. I think of traveling the world for your stories, meeting interesting characters and discovering amazing places. I always knew this was silly, still I kept pressing on with my idle daydreaming. And   then I read an article which Rupert sent where writers describe writing: the angst and the pain, the insecurity and the boredom!, the pressure of publishers and the rage of not getting it right. But then I thought, this is amazing, this makes you feel alive. I would so much rather become enraged at myself, a publisher or the innocent readers, instead of fuming over a stupid argument at work.

Now, I hardly have any time to write and whenever I face the blank page, I always wonder if I’m not wasting it. If I’m not any good, maybe I should just use those hours cleaning the house and doing admin work for the company. In the end, writing is a guilty pleasure.