I've done quite a few jobs in this world, many of them menial, physically demanding and borderline exploitative- some downright dangerous. (I was a soldier once, a long time ago). To this day, writing is for me the most challenging task, or vocation, or job I've undertaken, to the point where I gave it up for periods and just slaved away (relatively) happily on a minimum wage, allowing my mind to take a break. if that sounds somewhat precious, then so be it. I've been a bartender, I've caught battery chickens and been part of that horrible process (again, I'm not precious, but it put me off chicken for years afterwards). I've been a butcher (as my father was, God bless his memory - he was the finest man I have ever known), a teacher and a heavy-lifting drone in a warehouse (does wonders for posture, if the vertebrae can withstand it). And yet I keep coming back to writing. Without it, I am not myself. If I cannot poop out words at some point, I feel constipated in an almost physical sense. I fucking hate it, but it is a part of me. I am no longer a young man, but this impulse will, I realise, never die. It is a massive pain in the arse, frankly. But it is also the mainspring which makes my sheer existence keep ticking along. If you don't feel that way about writing- if it is not some Promethean vulture gnawing on your gut- then don't do it - do something else- get rich, die trying; I don't care. But if this is how you feel, then you have no choice but to write and keep writing. That is engraved on your brain in letters which can't be erased - you poor bastard. Welcome to the club