Hearing about a vaccine for Covid 19 has boosted everyone’s optimism this week. Let’s hope it won’t take many months before it can be distributed.

It’s taken a wet Saturday and a second much shorter lockdown to get me excited about writing again.

This morning I read a quote from Sybille Bedford who is described by Selina Hastings as a reluctant literary great. For any struggling novice writer the words inspire.

If one is going to be a failure as a writer, it will have to be for lack of talent or originality, but it mustn’t be because one didn’t have the guts to try.

When I ask myself why I write, why I spend so many hours sitting at a laptop when my natural inclination is to be moving and doing practical things I have to try to pin down my motives. Perhaps I won’t share them and anyway they change from month to month. Trying to write is in some ways like having an addiction, something demanding to be satisfied each day and then the relief of having some paragraphs to read over.

I’m revising novel number three and the fear of failure is strong.