What I learned about writing – You should write, first of all, to please yourself.

OK. Then, writing can’t be a way of life; the important part of writing is living. OK. And lastly, you have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.

Wow!

How do you make sense of that?

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Perhaps somebody else has worked out what this conundrum means.

I’ve been trawling the endless collection of Twitter descriptions provided by my fellow writers, noting that there used to be a restriction of 140 characters.

How do you sum yourself and/or your life in 140 characters, or even 280?

I started out with a few catchphrases, something that would draw followers. I’m thinking the word ‘aspiring’ will be my catchphrase. But how will my writing encapsulate that? It needs a little qualification or substance.

I’m aspiring to be a writer, or is that author? Is there a difference? Is there a guide to what I can call myself?

My life, quite simply put, but in more than 140 characters, is married happily, has two wonderful children, three amazing grandchildren, and a wealth of experience acquired over the years in parenting and surviving in a world that isn’t easy to live in.

To be honest, I don’t think anyone would be interested in any story based on those precepts. Actually, that sounds rather boring, doesn’t it?

Maybe it would be better if I were a retired policeman, or a retired lawyer, or a retired sheriff, or a retired private investigator, or a retired doctor, someone who had an occupation that was a rich mine of information from which to draw upon.

Retired computer programmers, supermarket shelf stackers, night cleaners, accounts clerks and general dogsbodies don’t quite cut the mustard. Should we try to embellish our personal history to make it more appealing?

It’s much the same as writing about daily life. No one wants to read about it; people want to be taken out of the humdrum of normalcy and be taken into a world where they can become the character in the book.

And there you have it, in a nutshell, why I write.

I want to escape the mundanity of everyday life and become something, someone else, and, with a little luck, you, the reader, will come along for the roller coaster ride with me.

Or come out of retirement, join a secret intelligence agency and go and save the world.

Then write about it.

Then I’ll be living in such a way that my writing will emerge from it.

Yet…

Death and mayhem sound so much better in my head than in reality.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 127

Day 127 – Stop waiting to write

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The Myth of the Perfect Moment: Why You Should Stop Waiting to Write

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a work on paper.” — E.B. White

We’ve all been there. You have the laptop open, a fresh cup of coffee, and a quiet house. But then, the lighting isn’t quite right. Or you’re feeling a bit sluggish. Or perhaps you’re waiting for that “divine spark” of inspiration that feels like it’s perpetually stuck in traffic.

We tell ourselves that we are just preserving our creative energy for a moment where we can be our “best selves.” But as E.B. White famously pointed out, that elusive “ideal condition” is a trap. If you wait for the stars to align, you’ll be waiting forever.

The Perfectionism Paradox

The desire for the perfect environment is rarely about comfort; it’s about fear. Writing is an act of vulnerability. When we wait for the perfect conditions, we are engaging in a subtle form of procrastination. By convincing ourselves that we can’t write because the conditions aren’t right, we protect ourselves from the possibility of writing something bad.

But here is the truth that every professional writer discovers eventually: The work is not found in the perfect moment; it is found in the discipline of the messy, imperfect ones.

The Reality of the “Working” Writer

If you look at the history of literature, you’ll find that the greatest works were rarely written in ivory towers or secluded, idyllic retreats.

Maya Angelou famously rented cheap hotel rooms to force herself to focus, often stripping the rooms of any distractions to face the blank page.
Franz Kafka wrote late at night, exhausted after his day job at an insurance company.
Countless parents have written their masterpieces in fifteen-minute increments during nap times or at kitchen tables while dinner bubbled on the stove.

These writers didn’t wait for the world to stop spinning so they could write. They carved out space within a spinning world. They understood that writing is labour, not a luxury.

How to Kill the “Ideal Conditions” Habit

If you find yourself paralysed by the need for perfection, it’s time to break the cycle. Here are three ways to stop waiting and start creating:

1. Lower the Bar: Give yourself permission to write “badly.” The goal of a first draft isn’t to be brilliant; it’s to exist. You can’t edit a blank page, but you can always fix a draft that is already written.

2. Create Rituals, Not Requirements. Instead of needing total silence, perfect temperature, and a specific mood, build a “trigger” that tells your brain it’s time to work. It could be putting on a specific pair of noise-cancelling headphones or playing the same three songs on repeat. These rituals are portable; you can take them anywhere.

3. Embrace the “Micro-Session” Stop waiting for a four-hour block of uninterrupted time. If you have ten minutes before a meeting or while waiting for a laundry cycle to finish, write. Those small pockets of time add up to pages, and pages add up to a book.

The Bottom Line

E.B. White’s warning is a call to arms for every aspiring creator. Your life is not going to pause to accommodate your art. Silence will be broken by sirens; inspiration will be interrupted by laundry; your mood will fluctuate from high to low.

The “ideal conditions” you are waiting for are a ghost. Don’t let your legacy be a pile of unwritten ideas. Write now, write messy, and write anyway. The world doesn’t need your perfection; it needs your voice.

Searching for locations: From Zhengzhou to Suzhou by train, and the Snowy Sea Hotel, Suzhou, China

For the first time on this trip, we encounter problems with Chinese officialdom at the railway station, though we were warned that this might occur.

We had a major problem with the security staff when they pulled everyone over with aerosols and confiscated them. We lost styling mousse, others lost hair spray, and the men, their shaving cream. But, to her credit, the tour guide did warn us they were stricter here, but her suggestion to be angry they were taking our stuff was probably not the right thing to do.

As with previous train bookings, the Chinese method of placing people in seats didn’t quite manage to keep couples traveling together, together on the train. It was an odd peculiarity which few of the passengers understood, nor did they conform, swapping seat allocations.

This train ride did not seem the same as the last two and I don’t think we had the same type of high-speed train type that we had for the last two. The carriages were different, there was only one toilet per carriage, and I don’t think we were going as fast.

But aside from that, we had 753 kilometers to travel with six stops before ours, two of which were very large cities, and then our stop, about four and a half hours later. With two minutes this time, to get the baggage off the team managed it in 40 seconds, a new record.

After slight disorientation getting off the train, we locate our guide, easily found by looking for the Trip-A-Deal flag. From there it’s a matter of getting into our respective groups and finding the bus.

As usual, the trip to the hotel was a long one, but we were traveling through a much brighter, and well lit, city.

As for our guide, we have him from now until the end of the tour. There are no more train rides, we will be taking the bus from city to city until we reach Shanghai. Good thing then that the bus is brand new, with that new car smell. Only issue, no USB charging point.

The Snowy Sea hotel.

It is finally a joy to get a room that is nothing short of great. It has a bathroom and thus privacy.

Everyone had to go find a supermarket to purchase replacements for the confiscated items. Luckily there was a huge supermarket just up from the hotel that had everything but the kitchen sink.

But, unlike where we live, the carpark is more of a scooter park!

It is also a small microcosm of Chinese life for the new more capitalistic oriented Chinese.

The next morning we get some idea of the scope of high-density living, though here, the buildings are not 30 stories tall, but still just as impressive.

These look like the medium density houses, but to the right of these are much larger buildings

The remarkable thing about this is those buildings stretch as far as the eye can see.

“The Things we do for Love”, the story behind the story

This story has been ongoing since I was seventeen, and just to let you know, I’m 72 this year.

Yes, it’s taken a long time to get it done.

Why, you might ask.

Well, I never gave it much interest because I started writing it after a small incident when I was 17, and working as a book packer for a book distributor in Melbourne

At the end of my first year, at Christmas, the employer had a Christmas party, and that year, it was at a venue in St Kilda.

I wasn’t going to go because at that age, I was an ordinary boy who was very introverted and basically scared of his own shadow and terrified by girls.

Back then, I would cross the street to avoid them

Also, other members of the staff in the shipping department were rough and ready types who were not backwards in telling me what happened, and being naive, perhaps they knew I’d be either shocked or intrigued.

I was both adamant I wasn’t coming and then got roped in on a dare.

Damn!

So, back then, in the early 70s, people looked the other way when it came to drinking, and of course, Dutch courage always takes away the concerns, especially when normally you wouldn’t do half the stuff you wouldn’t in a million years

I made it to the end, not as drunk and stupid as I thought I might be, and St Kilda being a salacious place if you knew where to look, my new friends decided to give me a surprise.

It didn’t take long to realise these men were ‘men about town’ as they kept saying, and we went on an odyssey. Yes, those backstreet brothels where one could, I was told, have anything they could imagine.

Let me tell you, large quantities of alcohol and imagination were a very bad mix.

So, the odyssey in ‘The things we do’ was based on that, and then the encounter with Diana. Well, let’s just say I learned a great deal about girls that night.

Firstly, not all girls are nasty and spiteful, which seemed to be the case whenever I met one. There was a way to approach, greet, talk to, and behave.

It was also true that I could have had anything I wanted, but I decided what was in my imagination could stay there. She was amused that all I wanted was to talk, but it was my money, and I could spend it how I liked.

And like any 17-year-old naive fool, I fell in love with her and had all these foolish notions. Months later, I went back, but she had moved on, to where no one was saying or knew.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken and had to get over that first loss, which, like any 17-year-old, was like the end of the world.

But it was the best hour I’d ever spent in my life and would remain so until I met the woman I have been married to for the last 48 years.

As Henry, he was in part based on a rebel, the son of rich parents who despised them and their wealth, and he used to regale anyone who would listen about how they had messed up his life

If only I’d come from such a background!

And yes, I was only a run away from climbing up the stairs to get on board a ship, acting as a purser.

I worked for a shipping company and they gave their junior staff members an opportunity to spend a year at sea working as a purser on a cargo ship that sailed between Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart in Australia.

One of the other junior staff members’ turn came, and I would visit him on board when he would tell me stories about life on board, the officers, the crew, and other events. These stories, which sounded incredible to someone so impressionable, were a delight to hear.

Alas, by that time, I had tired of office work and moved on to be a tradesman at the place where my father worked.

It proved to be the right move, as that is where I met my wife. Diana had been right; love would find me when I least expected it.

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365 Days of writing, 2026 – 127

Day 127 – Stop waiting to write

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