The end of the world as we know it

There was a program on Channel 4 the other day that looked at what would happen if we humans suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth.

Really it was all fairly obvious - nature would simply reclaim the space - but it was interesting to hear how quickly it would happen, and there was some great stuff from Chernobyl.

I'd love to go to Chernobyl. Unless you're close to the reactor core, it's actually pretty safe now (if it wasn't the wildlife wouldn't have come back).

But then I've always loved the whole post-apocalyptic future stuff. I even had a go at writing a sort of one called Infection. You can give it a read by clicking here if you really like.

In fact it was actually writing Infection that kinda made me think I'd like to have a go at actually writing properly. Before that I'd written a few short stories, but Infection had more of an arc.

Since then I've struggled to actually realise that goal. What you don't realise is that writing is hard work.

I mean, you kinda know that - an average novel is about 80,000 to 120,00 words so it obviously isn't 'easy' - but what you don't realise is how draining coming up with those words can be. I don't mean like as in writer's block, but simply the act of generating stuff and laying it down in a sensible and coherent way is draining.

I mean, you can write quite a lot in a day, but then what you find is that the next day you feel like the life has been sucked out of you, and the next day too. So you end up writing in splurges and it feels disjointed and a little incoherent.

Or the other way is to write a little bit each day and deliberately hold yourself back, but then it feels like you're getting nowhere - you check how many words you've done all the time, think about all the stuff still to do and it seems never-ending.

In the beginning you sort of wonder how writing can be a full time job. After a while it becomes clear.