I was once given a lucky rabbit’s foot. A friend’s father had shot it. I kept it for a little bit, curious I guess, about a dead furry foot – but when a maggot crawled out from under the flesh, I threw it away. I don’t think my luck suffered as a result. Luck is like the sea, it stretches across the horizon and occasionally sweeps up and splashes up your feet – but even as the cold delights you – the water is already draining out of reach.

I have a number of ‘rabbit’s feet’ now – an antique painting of a Chinese scholar I found at a country market in rural China; endless cups of the best jasmine tea; a well-thumbed book of ancient Chinese poetry – but to be honest, even when we pretend there are, there are no lucky rabbit feet involved in writing. The dull answer is it’s a matter of sitting down and telling a story. And once you have it written, the skill to look it over and sift the grains out. That’s something many people forget: good writers not only have the ability to write well, but, just as importantly, they can see the good in what they write.

When I was single, the best time to write was first thing in the morning, fresh from my dreams. There was a clarity then, or maybe the better word is a ‘dreaminess’ – before the world began to impose itself on my mind, through voices on the radio, phone calls, and people wanting attention. Now I am married with two small children, there is no way to get that. But I have learnt that different types of writing come at different times of the day: good editorial work in the afternoon, solid creative work in the morning (after a long and dream-like swim), and – if I can hold out all day – a short and brilliant burst late at night, when everyone is asleep and, with the darkness, dreams begin to draw close again.

Writers have the confidence of course (you could easily exchange ‘confidence’ for stupidity or bloody mindedness) to sit down and keep writing without any hope or promise that their work will ever make it beyond the screen of their computer. There are many hindrances on the journey: Women. Men. Bills. Mothers. Rejection. Boredom. Emails. Doubt. Your mind will throw up a hundred reasons why you should stop. Why no-one will ever read your stuff. Why you should give up and go and watch TV instead. I’ve found that voices in your head will always give you reasons to stop writing, to give up and do something less solitary.

But who said writing was easy? It’s important to remember that professional writers are amateur writers who did not give up. It’s really important to remember that. Don’t give up, I remind myself. And – perhaps the best encouragement – remember what made you sit down and want to write in the first place.

www.justinhillauthor.com