It was important to me that I was good. Throughout my 20s, the 2000s, I evolved ways of thinking about writing that I felt gave me an edge. A strong bases was always, I don’t do outlines, I don’t brainstorm or map characters, I don’t even think about what I’m writing, instead it all comes out of the writing itself. From this came the more obvious commitments for an edge: writing habitually everyday, and reading everyday as a study for my own writing.

I’d recommend any of these principles to any aspiring writers, but remember my purpose was always to be competitive. I had to be good, and that can only mean better than everyone else. I worked in isolation, and only engaged with my competition by reading their books, enjoying sometimes throwing them aside after only twenty pages, or even more often after only a badly written first five pages. My finds that were novels that were good, too good, I studied with the taste of jealousy on my tongue. Common wisdom is to learn to write and continue writing in the company of others, ideally with a PhD Supervisor as guidance, and a department-connected-small-press-publisher to aim for. I recommend Isolation, success through self-judgement, but brutal-self-judgement.