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Martin, my late husband, managed to do this. Every day. He’d wake early, say his prayers and then sit a his desk and write. All the advice given to aspiring writers tells them this is de rigueur: spend an hour or two a day, at least attempting to write, even is you don’t get many words on to the page. The Derek Walcotts of this world, we are told, would sit at their desks, even if they didn’t write a word—I think Walcott sat for at least four hours, though I may be remembering wrong.

I do not do that and never have, so writing every day is a habit that I am only now trying to form, since I do not have lots of time left, and I need to be more organized about how I use it. However, what I want to say as I set about trying to turn up every day is that, despite not having this excellent habit, I’ve written a PhD dissertation, nine poetry collections, a novel, and a short story collection, and I’ve just completed another one of those. I’ve written more than a dozen textbooks and a reference work, both with a collaborator, and I’ve worked on five anthologies of poetry, again, mostly with someone else.

So if you are a writer who does not turn up every day, don’t beat on yourself and don’t give up the calling. Accept that you may be different, that each writer’s style of approaching the writing project is their own, and that what matters is that the words do emerge and make it into the world.

Of course, if that isn’t happening, then… Suffice it to say that one solution to that problem may be to find a writing partner. But we will resume with that another time…

Blessings, till then!