When I write, I consider it 'work', whereas the day to day job I do is merely for money, if you get my meaning. I find myself writing much less at weekends because Saturday and Sunday are 'rest days', while during the week, before and after my shifts at the factory where I earn a living, I power up the PC and get down to pinning my imagination to disk.(It used to be paper, but a friend persuaded me to enter the 20th century, and I haven't looked back since.) Never having had an audience, my stories are chiefly an escape from mundane reality, but I find they do reflect my feelings and interests over the years, if somewhat obliquely. Looking back over things I've written, it's interesting to see what was pre-occupying me at the time, as filtered though what I concentrated on in my fic. My writings seem to constitute a kind of diary, without actually relating directly what was going on in my life at the time, yet they remind me of my feelings, etc. I write mainly because I love to do it, and in some way feel compelled to. I just wish I had sufficient talent to go pro, but I've learned to recognise the difference between reasonably good stories and those good enough to make it in the cut-throat world of publishing. I only wish I had a tenth of the originality or talent of some of the writers I've encountered in zines. I'll never stop writing for my own pleasure, but I've accepted I'll probably never be the novelist I'd like to have been. But good luck to anyone who's made it, or who hopes to in the future - I say, go for it, if you think you've got what it takes. Mel

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