I shouldn't bother reading this if I were you

You'll have to bear with me thoroughout this post. I am in the infuriating position of having almost decided to throw caution (and my pension) to the wind and make my living by my pen. However, several factors have given me pause. In no particular order:

1. I have the most atrocious handwriting, so living by my pen will not get me very far. 'Living by my keyboard' lacks the necessary romance of the grand gesture, quite apart from the risk that the phrase could risk people mistaking me for Rick Wakeman.

2. No-one wants to pay me for what I write. You don't. You wouldn't be reading blogs if you wanted to pay for reading matter. Quite right. Freedom of choice and all that. Not a lot of help to struggling hacks like myself, though. My last semi-pro gig was very enjoyable and the recording of the script went very well, but it's not going to be reflected in my pay cheque. (In fact, the person who recruited me for the job was reprimanded by senior management for using a member of staff to write rather than using volunteers throughout. I hope the final product vindicates us.)

3. Partly as a result of 2, I can't get an agent. This is a well-worn complaint of the unpublished writer, so much so that extraterrestrial observers hear it so often they think it is a mating call. I hope I'm not abducted, I could end up paired off with someone working on volume seventeen of a multi-layered science fantasy epic. That would clash horribly with my retro thriller ambitions. Imagine the children. No, don't. It's too horrible.

4. I've got writer's chilblains. Similar to writer's block, this is a self-inflicted condition caused by having all sorts of fine ideas for plotlines while nowhere near writing materials. When I come to set them down, the ones I can remember in any useful detail are trite and hackneyed and I get cold feet which soon becomes painful when drawn out over a long period of time.

5. When I do actually sit down and make myself write, reading it back it strikes me as the maunderings of a deranged mind.

All these things considered, I fear I shall have to stick to the day job. And for the benefit of those in the blogosphere, perhaps I should go back to wasting time on Facebook instead of trying to kickstart my writing on here.

Thank you for reading this far. I think you deserve a chocolate biscuit for making it to the end.

Variations on the theme from M*A*S*H: Part two

You may have seen the media coverage this week of the deaths of the conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan, who chose to end their lives together at the Swiss suicide clinic, Dignitas. Lady Downes was terminally ill; her husband, though losing his sight and hearing and becoming increasingly frail, was not. There are those who say that suicide is an abomination, whatever the motivation. Yet even the Catholic church no longer deems it a mortal sin, since to contemplate suicide a person must apparently not be in their right mind. But when a person is a part of you to such an extent that living without them would be more agonising than dying, quietly, alongside them, suicide may seem less like an act of desperation and more like the last laugh against illness and infirmity. I'm not condoning suicide. It isn't my place to be either for or against it, since I believe it's a matter for the individual concerned, and can only feel compassion for those who believe this is the way their life must end. I have no connection with the Downes family, but I respect the decision of Sir Edward and his wife, and I hope they are now at peace. My sympathies are with their family and friends.