Interview with Preston Writing Network.

Jenn Ashworth is a Preston-based writer whose debut novel A Kind of Intimacy has received to-die-for critical acclaim. (In fact, the Guardian reviewer asked: "... who wouldn't kill for a comic gift like Jenn Ashworth's?") Jenn runs a blog for writers in her neck of the woods, called the Preston Writing Network, and she very kindly interviewed me for the site.

Another take on anxiety.

A very stimulating response to our navel-gazing about anxiety from Jenn Ashworth on her terrific blog Every Day I Lie A Little. Here's an excerpt:

I wonder if anxiety around writing is the same as anxiety about everything else, and just as un-useful? If it is an over-awareness of an imaginary audience, a kind of stage fright brought on by the assumption that making things up and writing them down is an important thing to do? So what if it isn't good, or no-one reads it? When it becomes important, for me, it gets stuck. When it is playing and I am only pleasing myself, this thing called 'flow' happens and I am more calm and content than I am when I am doing anything else. The inner critic whispers justifiably over things like punctutation and spelling, but because I can fix these things when I can be bothered, she is easily ignored.