How do you make a career out of writing?

If you really want to know, there are lots of ways to find out. You can do a writing course, or if you’re really keen, an MFA. You can buy one of a multitude of books telling you how to do it. Or, of course, you can seek out the wisdom of the great many experts posting their advice on the wide and wonderful web.

The world is a pretty messed up place. It seems like everywhere you look, things are just not working out. People are arguing and fighting with each other. Politics is a big and utter mess. Nobody seems to have the faintest idea how to solve big issues like global warming or racism or inequality.

Then again, maybe it’s always been like this. If you spend any time studying history, you will notice that conflict and disagreement is nothing new, and most people have had a pretty rotten time most of the time. Sure, occasionally there have been little windows where little groups have had it pretty good, but that’s largely been the exception rather than the rule.

There are lots of different kinds of books. But, given the number of books around, and the complexity of any attempt to categorise them, at the most basic level the writing world is split into two distinct camps.

As frequent readers of this blog (and I know there are at least a couple of you) should have realised by now, I like to keep things pretty private. I’m not the sort of person to post every detail about my life into the public domain. I like to keep that little space for me and my nearest and dearest only, while I keep this blog more focussed on the world of writing and my place in it.

Over the last few weeks, they’ve been playing back all the Harry Potter films on TV.

This isn’t such a big deal. After all, those movies seem to be on a constant repeat schedule. Pick a week, any week, throughout the year and there’s a good chance you’ll find a Harry Potter movie somewhere.