Friday

It's been a busy week, with creativity having to move aside as I gear up for the new year of paid work. I'm fairly sure this is only temporary and I will get my balance back once again.

Meanwhile, BBC 4's Dear Diary has been an absorbing end-of-a-frenetic-day watch. So far its looked at the power of diary writing, how people hide or reveal themselves through writing a diary and why people do it. In the most recent programme, there was the suggestion that there has to be a certain level of self-absorption, naval gazing - narcissism even - which motivates a person to keep going with a diary.

I have heard the suggestion that all writers - and especially poets - are narcissists, never happy unless they're able to bore others rigid with their view of the world thinly disguised as a sonnet or a short story.

There's no doubt that there has to be ego in writing, and I am not immune to wanting adoration for what I produce. However, it feels too easy, too dismissive, to leave it at that. The enjoyment and well-being I gain from the act of writing, even if it is never to be shared, goes beyond stroking the self. And then, what of the reader? I have had some responses to my recent article from people who do not know me, thanking me for putting into words what they have experienced or feel compelled to explore, and for encouraging them to continue.

This is the real pleasure of writing for an audience, the connection, human to human, the shared understanding or the debate, which leads to further journeys, further discoveries. Though, of course, my burgeoning narcissist is most content to be having a little preen on reading these enthusiastic emails too.