The Reason For Doing.

A friend of mine in New Jersey was recently part of an authors’ panel talking to an audience of fifty five wannabee authors. So I ask myself ‘Why do they wannabee authors?’ (Well, I would if I spoke American, but you know what I mean.)

Is it because they want to be rich or famous, or both? Is it because they want the author’s lifestyle – sitting with a typewriter in the drawing room while the scent of magnolias drifts in through the French windows? Is it because they have something they desperately want to communicate to the world?

Well, obviously I don’t know, and it’s none of my business anyway. What I realised, though, was this:

I was the ripe old age of twenty five before I stopped doing things for where they could get me. It just didn’t suit. Since then, I’ve only done things because I wanted to do them. And that includes writing. And they haven’t got me anywhere, which is why I’m a Man of No Consequence. But that’s OK.