You’ve decided you want to write. What? Are you crazy? Don’t you know people will think you’ve leapt from the high-tower into an empty pool, that you’ve eaten the last of your remaining sandwiches, and quite possibly that you’ve hawked your bag of prized tombowlers for an idea that’s left you fog-blind? Why waste your time doing something very few people will likely see, much less like? I implore you, take that little spark and snuff it – now, before it’s too late! Scatter the ashes across the furthest reaches of your grey matter and hope the whole nonsense gets smudged into all that lovely squidgy stuff. That should do it, right? Kill off any lingering fantasies of the scribbling kind?

Nope. Sorry to disappoint. Once that brand has been lit, embers will continue to burn, no matter how far down the cerebral crevasses you’ve buried them. Ideas will lodge there, take up residence. Sometimes they’re like squatters, impossible to evict. Then what?

Science tells us the human body is a haven for all sorts of extraneous detritus. So what harm is there in allowing creativity to flourish? Will we undergo complete personality flips if we give space-time to something that might bring us personal joy and / or satisfaction? Will we neglect our responsibilities or our loved ones because we’re so obsessed we can’t see past our own brilliance? Not unless we are already those kinds of people.

So, if your synapses have been singed by even the dullest of flares, take a chance. Grab a pen. Spend five minutes jotting down an idea, a snippet of conversation, the way a scene / picture / movie / person made you feel. Before you know it, you’re doing it. Writing. Okay, it’s not a novel, or a story, or even anything that’s coherent. It doesn’t matter. It’s a start. And here’s the important part. If you’re writing – in whatever form that takes – you have earned the right to call yourself a writer.

Oh, and do you really care what the neighbours think?