Bottom line

As so often, I am again indebted to that amazing chronicler and conduit of useful information, Perry Middlemiss at Matilda -- this time for pointing me in the direction of Adelaide crime writer Kirsty Brooks's blog. Here's a quotation from it: something that ought to be written, in letters of fire, on all the forms that aspiring students of Creative Writing fill in when they're applying to get into the courses.

You fall down but you pick yourself up again. In this field, your success is never guaranteed, but your love of it should be, you should love reading and writing and if you love something, no doubt you’ll be happy to do it a great deal, and to sacrifice many other things for it.