The Journalism Question

I remember my careers advice at school very clearly. I was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, and the answer was to be a writer. I could see no other choice. Out came all the leaflets about journalism; writing apparently meant journalism.

"No!" I said loudly. "I want to be a writer. I want to write fiction... stories... novels."

I had to qualify what writing meant to me because the poor adviser looked lost, and together we agreed that I should do my work experience in a library. "Well," came her reasoning, "there are novels there."

I see writing as a cosy, warm occupation - waking without an alarm, padding around the kitchen making endless cups of tea, writing curled up on the sofa on a wet and wild winter's day. Journalism, by comparison, has hard edges, stress, deadlines. That doesn't seem like writing at all, to me.

Looking at my last post, I was right to eshue journalism: there are two ideas, in the last post, of being rubbish at updating my blog and writing a diary - and I've managed to collide them together in a way that even I don't understand.

At this point I was going to post a link to prove that I am actually quite good at writing, but my computer is dying, so it'll have to wait until next time. So you'll have to come back - it's like a cliffhanger, isn't it...???