I’m not going to tell you how old I am. There are a few professional (and personal) secrets I reckon it is my right to keep to myself.

I would say, though, that by no stretch of the imagination could I be called young. I might not exactly qualify as old, but I’m definitely no spring chicken. My teenage years and even my twenties are now a fair way behind me. I’ve been around long enough to acquire a certain level of – I’d like to call it wisdom and experience, but I suspect it’s really more about ingrained habits and grey hairs.

I’m not sure how I managed to achieve the age that I’ve reached. Things seemed to be moving along quite slowly. Reaching my teenage years took an eternity, and then getting to my twenties was like a whole lifetime passing. I strolled casually through my twenties, not being in too much of a hurry to get anywhere. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the thirties were looming, and then – how on earth did I suddenly get to the age that I am?

To be honest, it’s all a bit of a shock. The days seem to be flying by, a bit like that crazy feed you see on social media like Twitter. The years disappear before you even register them – one moment you’re celebrating the beginning of January, the next moment December has reared its ugly head again. How does this happen? How does time, which once passed with wearying slowness, now suddenly speed up like a racing car?

I remember the good old days, when I could laze through the days. All the while, the story ideas rushed into my head like an unending torrent. In a good year (which probably took about as long as five years now) I would have enough story ideas to power a bunch of books.

Now it seems like there’s a reverse process happening. As the years race past me, seems like the onrush of story ideas has dried up to a trickle. Now when I get through a year, I feel lucky if even one half decent story has landed in my brain. I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s having too many other thing to focus my attention on. Maybe it’s just a consequence of getting older and finding that my brain doesn’t work as efficiently as it used to.

Either way, I feel like the balance is now totally out of whack. I yearn for a time when the years passed slowly and the stories came quick. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to get back to those times.