ABSTRACT
Writing is a tough and challenging business. Writers of all kinds, with the possible exception of tabloid journalists and some romantic novelists, find the production of convincing and satisfying prose to be an exhausting and emotional activity. This is true not only of ‘creative’ writers such as novelists, journalists, popular historians and biographers but also of those whose daily toil entails the production of factual material or reports, such as secretaries, legal drafters, scientists, engineers and academics. Writing is joined up thinking and is very, very difficult.
