I went to see crime writer, Sara Paretsky, speak at the library last night. She was engaging, warm, entertaining and interesting. And her passion for mixing a sense of social responsibility with her writing was infectious.

Why write? To communicate? To communicate what? Our story which we feel compelled to tell, that's often where people start. And, then, maybe, our view of the world, our questions and, perhaps, some of our solutions too.

Why read? Certainly not to be shouted at or lectured to. To be informed, to feel a kindred spirit, to be entertained. What Sara Paretsky manages so well is to interweave the political comment into a story which carries us along and enthralls. That's where her skill lie. It's one I'd like to emulate more.

In her new novel, Hardball, her detective, VI, becomes entangled with a group of socially active nuns, based on a real collection of activist nuns from Chicago. Her description reminded me of my time volunteering in New Orleans where I met the Caritas nuns, the first time I'd spent any significant time with women from a religious community. They impressed me greatly. They had been the first racially mixed order in the deep South and still lived in one of the poorest districts of the city, cheek by jowl with families beset by drug addiction, alcoholism, pitiful housing and lack of hope for the future. The nuns' commitment to quietly working for human justice, through their way of being and actions, was humbling. They also cooked me up the most delicious corn bread I ever tasted.

I'm tethered down low,
yet the trees still grow boldly,
bone straight and stretching.

My lovely volunteer in my WEA funded therapeutic creative writing class hands me an article. Ex-poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and author David Lodge arguing over whether the growing plethora of creative writing courses being run by universities have any purpose.

It's a discussion that swirls around and comes to the surface every now and again. Yet we never see art or music or drama degrees being questioned. It's as if an aptitude for writing, alone of the creative arts, has to be divinely given and then developed through a lonely apprenticeship in a garret.

Can talent be taught or is it innately present? In my experience, there are some students who appear to have a particular feel for words and are able to experiment in evocative and innovative ways. But is this because they have given themselves permission to explore, play and commit themselves to their creative process?

Even if the spark is present - whether naturally or by design - more is required. Motivation; openness to feedback from others; technique; a voracious appetite for reading; regular practise - a writer is one who writes; an awareness of, and engagement with, the literary movements of the time. All these should come from a well taught creative writing course.

Interestingly, Lodge's main gripe was that universities were churning out writers who could only produce formulaic pieces. I think he is shooting at the wrong target. Publishers and their - our? - obsession with celebrity and product are doing that quite unaided. Students may decide to write to a formula, but that's because that's what will get them published. Lodge claims that in publishing originality and good writing will out - who is he trying to kid?

The article gave the number of authors who had been on short lists for literary prizes and had also been on a university creative writing course. It was high - especially for poets, that side of our demon art which is supposed to be more god-given than any other. Now surely that must be telling us something?

The first day of the second month of the first year of the second decade of the twenty-first century and last night the lightly gilded full moon hung heavy over the fulminating waves.

I go to pick up my collages. I am led into a back room, a small square holding cell, with a large wooden scaffold of shelves along one wall. A morgue for creativity. The un-chosen are propped against each other, flat fish filleted, waiting to be smoked.

I take my precious pair back out into the lobby and begin to wrap them gently for the journey home. The woman behind the counter addresses me. I recognise her. She was one of the choosers. "Perhaps," she says brightly, "you would like to go up and see the exhibition?" Would I hell. I smile back sweetly and say I don't have the time.

Don't they teach empathy at art gallery curator's school?

"Rubbers," she says - read "erasers" for any American followers I may have. "Here, smell them," she continues, her whispering tones evoking the erotic rather than the every day. And with a slightly embarrassing delight, I admit that I know what she means.

I don't keep them wrapped up and in boxes, but I do appreciate rubbers. I have a triangular one a student gave me, I like its shape, the way it sits in my hand and that it effectively erases. I'm fond of most stationery. I get a kick out of choosing my writing journals - the quality of their paper, their size, their covers have to appeal to me - I enjoy finding the right pen. In discussion with my husband, I realised I don't get that excited by protractors or set squares or compasses. Though I remembered receiving all three in a tin case as a preliminary for starting secondary school and never, ever using them.

All this reverie was sparked by a discussion on last Friday's Radio 4's Woman's Hour between author Alison Baverstock and technology journalist Claudine Beaumont. Alison is a devotee of stationery, Claudine writes directly onto a plethora of technological gadgets and claims that anyone under 30 would be mystified by the allure of pen and paper.

I do believe that there is a difference in the creative process between writing long-hand and tapping on a machine. In my writing journal, the words change size, shape, form different patterns on the paper. There are "mis-spellings", "errors" in grammar which lead me into new unlooked for thoughts and which a computer would rudely underline in red or green. All this happens naturally, unconciously, as my imagination dictates. With any technological kit, this is pre-determined by whoever wrote the programme.

I am able to create directly on a computer - I am doing it now - but to be at my most creative, when I surprise, and enchant, myself, I need that free hand.

I note that Alison is an author concerned with novel writing, while Claudine is a journalist. Perhaps, that also explains the difference.

I promised myself I would write this post whatever happened. Saturday saw me taking two of my precious poetry-collages through the rain to the local art gallery to enter them into the Pindar East Coast Open. The framer had said cheerfully, you never know this weather might put off a number of entrants. In other words my chances of being selected could be higher because of the snow and the rain. I skulked into the building and out again without meeting the eyes of any of the other hopefuls with hands full of oblong packages of various sizes.

Then three days passed. Excitement would come in waves, perhaps even now my creations were being reverentially placed onto the yes side of the decision room. Only to be quashed, who did I think I was pretending to be a real artist?

Finally at the end of this afternoon I rang the prescribed number. An efficient sounding young woman looked my name up. "No, I'm sorry your pieces have not been selected this time around."

"Thank you," I said. Though what I really wanted to do was wail: you've got it wrong, they're perfect, they're fragments of my soul. To scream: how can you turn them down, you're philistines, you know nothing about art, call yourself an art gallery?! There are few times when exclamation marks come into my writing, this occasion warrants it, however.

I have no way of knowing whether I nearly didn't get in or whether what I offered was thrown to one side with deriding laughter. I'd prefer to believe the former, and perhaps, if only, there'd been even more inclement weather Saturday...

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.