I often feel like Frodo. Ideas I thought ‘safe and secret’ can be hidden no longer. I step out to see if I can subdue them to my will, and get rid of them once and for all.

I think the journey hard, beset by wraiths and fears, pierced by plot issues. Bright detours into research lure me. Friends materialize out of the fog, pointing out logical flaws – ‘silly writer, the fog has to come between the wraiths and the piercing’. They are right. I trek onward, shivering and wounded. I know this task is mine. I carry it forward.