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I am asked what happened to my writing — that novel I thought I was on the verge of publishing three years ago.

Let’s just call it a great hiatus. Right now, it lies abandoned for the simple reason that I believe it made me ill.

Hypertension. Accute anxiety. Depression. Extreme writer’s doubt. Call it what you will.

I realised that whenever I touched it, I’d be overcome by a heightened agitation that paralysed me.

Is that writing fiction in general, or just that novel? Unknown. Is it the telling of that tale, and all it stirs within?

Or is it a deep-seated response to every failure, from constant rebuke through school to the scathing reviews of critics?

Even if it’s the case that I blame my writing needlessly for maladies already present within, I don’t dare touch it, lest it send me back into that spiral of despondency and despair.

That’s the reason I’ve exchanged laptop for walking shoes. The urgency once felt to write and be published has departed.

In truth, it may never see the light of day. Fear has put paid to my vision to be a writer. Perhaps that’s for the best.