[This is my entry into the Damn Fine Words writing contest]

Writing is my life.

Early morning, I wake up and I think about writing.

Into the wee darkest hours each night, I keep myself awake with my mind whirring through all the writing projects I can and should do.

I read everything I can lay my hands on about how to write, what to write, where to write.

I even dream about writing. I sit with a pen and write reams and reams.  I'm unstoppable. This is my dreams.

In reality, I sabotage myself.

Each day I tell myself: "Today I will write."

And writing doesn't happen.

I set myself up for failure.

I spend my waking hours, my freetime and worktime doing anything and everything except writing. Listening to the radio. Sorting the accounts. Answering emails. Reading. Reading about writing. Walking the dogs.

I've spent more time researching the best software and equipment for writers than I have putting words onto a page.

And I hate myself for it.

I even talk to myself in these words: "I hate myself for not writing".

Occasionally, I find a burst of energy. I start a new writing project. A novel. A blog. A magazine article. Every day, for a week, I'll sit down and write, 30 minutes every morning.

I have a pile of notebooks as high as my waist filled with unfinished writing projects.

I do my utmost to act as writers should.

I have a writing desk. I write in Moleskine notebooks.

I've written thousands of words.

I'm a NaNoWriMo winner.

And I still don't feel good enough. I'm not there.

I've been writing professionally for years, being paid small amounts here and there for my writing. But it's never been a full-time living. It's never been enough to take care of my family.

When anyone I meet in the real world asks what I do, I blush and mumble. I tell them my day job, never my dream. My deepest secret is that I'm a writer. I'm ashamed of my deepest desire.

I want to be proud to be a writer. This is why becoming a better writer would change my life.

It would unblock my hang-ups about writing.  If I knew I could write well, I wouldn't be so afraid to write.

I could sit down and write everything I dream of writing. I could finish the copy for my website. I could write regular blog posts. I could write stories, novels, magazine articles. I could know that everything I write will wow and woo my readers

I could begin to earn a full-time living as a writer and be proud to say "I am a writer."

I'll know how to get into my writing zone and just write.  My writing will have passion and focus.  I'll have an endless pool of ideas that will just work. And when I write shitty first drafts, I'll know how to polish them into diamonds.

I'll know how to write in a way that hooks people in. I'll know all the best tricks in the writing trade to make my readers take action. I'll deliver value and change my readers' lives.

Rather than begging for work, people will seek me out as their writer of choice.

So far, I've never been able to break  into the big time.

I've been swimming with the fishes, and now it's time join the sharks. To carve out my own territory that is uniquely me and mine.

I want to be a major league writer.

That's why becoming a better writer would change my life and why it's important for me to be in the Damn Fine Words writing course.

To those sharing my compartment on the sleeper train: TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONE(S). Receiving a text in the night is rude enough, but leaving your phone on all night while the battery is dying so it beep beep beeps every ten minutes all night long WILL infuriate me. If you do this, I will SHOUT at you in terrible German.  I will say "Woe ist der handy?" I will say "BEEP BEEP BEEP ist nicht gut." I will say "Ich mochte schlafe."

You do not need two mobile phones. Please, trust me on this one. One is plenty. One is often one too many for me. You don't need two. Ever. ESPECIALLY NOT TWO OF THE SAME MAKE AND MODEL. If you do this, you might forget to turn one of them off. And, as you appear to be blessed with the ability to sleep through a simultaneous earthquake, volcano eruption and tsunami, you might let it beep beep beep all night, and I will shout at you in terrible German, even if you don't stir a single mite from your slumber through all my heartfelt pleas.

To those sharing my compartment on the sleeper train: You do NOT need a cigarette at 3:02am. You will wake up the other five of us sharing the compartment with you as you climb out of your bed and crash around fumbling to unlock the compartment door. You will come back stinking of smoke, making us all choke in our sleep.  You are probably reducing our life expectancy. Does that make you feel good? Waiting until morning will not kill you, I promise. You have my word. Besides, have you not seen the huge NO SMOKING signs in the toilets in four languages, at least two of which I've heard you speaking in the past six hours?

You do not need another cigarette at 3.14am, just when you've settled down in bed after the first one. You will crash around just as loudly as you unlock the door. 

You most definitely, definitely, definitely do NOT need ANOTHER cigarette at 3:27am.  Cigarettes do not help you sleep. They are a STIMULANT. You can stay in bed. You can do it. This is not positive thinking. It's a fact.

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’

– Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1974

I don’t know how to pray.

Sometimes, when people pray, their face goes completely calm, and they start to make noises like they’re in ecstasy. Why does this never happen to me?

I know it’s good to pray everyday, but most days I forget or put it off for another day. When I do pray, it’s for selfish reasons. I’m in a difficult situation, and I don’t know the way out.

I put together clever theological arguments as excuses for not praying much. I tell myself: My life is an embodied prayer. I also tell myself: God knows everything, so surely he knows my needs and the needs of others. Why do I need to pray?

Most of the times I pray, I feel like it doesn’t make any difference.

I’m terrified of being asked to pray out loud. I’m equally terrified of prayer meetings. I don’t know what to say.

By consequence, I enjoy liturgy, which tells me what to say, and Quaker meetings, where I don’t have to say anything.

I’ve often heard stories of people healed by prayer. Whenever I hear these stories, I immediately search for a rational explanation.

I tell people my thoughts and prayers are with them because I don’t know what else to say, not because I’ve actually been praying for them.

I get cross with people who say “debts” or “sins” in the Lord’s prayer. It’s “trespasses”, don’t you know?

Whenever anyone starts praying, I immediately feel impatient and want them to hurry up and finish.

As a child, I used to pray for three things: a million pounds, to be able to fly, and to be able to turn invisible. Then I realised it would be more cunning to pray for a magic wand. Once my prayer was answered, I wouldn’t need to pray any more. I could just wave my magic wand and have all my wishes granted.

Originally published at movement.org.uk.

What did you let go of this year? Why?

I let go of being a student.

Studying is expensive, and I was running out of money.

I had invested my self-worth in my performance. Good grades meant I was a good person.

The focus of academia is ideas. I want to be a storyteller.

I was using studying as a crutch to stop myself expressing myself creatively. In academia you're encouraged to be critical rather than creative.

Academics can get away with shoddy writing. I want my readers to understand my writing, not to waste time re-reading because I'm too lazy to express myself clearly. I want my writing to grip readers to the page, not send them to sleep.

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? 

I learnt to crochet small animals. Monkeys were my animal of choice. Monkeys evoke a sense of wonder for me. They are mischevious yet cute: you cannot help but forgive them their naughty antics.

I began learning crochet in my 2009 Christmas holidays. As soon as I made my first amigurumi bear, there was no stopping me. Holding a creature in your hands that you have created is exhilarating. You are forced to stop for a moment and wonder at what is possible.

The thrill put me on a high. I wanted to make small animals again and again, and I did. Every spare moment away from work I'd pick my crochet hook and a ball of yarn, and make an animal.

I was addicted. By April, I had made over thirty animals, each of them taking around four hours to crochet. I had to force myself to stop. I was getting distracted from writing my dissertation.

Picture: Blue Bear, my first Amigurumi bear.

One word for 2010.

Risk.

I spent eight months writing an 18,000 word thesis on clowns (the circus performers with red noses). I was meant to be studying reconciliation. I don't yet know the result.

I applied for two jobs. My previous experience of job interviews was fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. I got one of the jobs.

I spent November writing a novel, despite knowing that for the first five days of the month I'd be working 14 hour days. I finished the novel.

My wife, Siona, quit her job to pursue her dream of making crafts. For two months we had almost no income. We're still learning how to live dreams and make a living.

We decided to leave our home in Belfast before we knew our destination.

We ended up in Budapest, not knowing a word of Hungarian. We're still here. I've learnt to say 'hello', 'yes', and 'please', and to ask for bread rolls at the bakery.

Should Christians swear in worship to God?

I was brought up in a Christian home where swearing (alongside sex) was the biggest taboo.

So, in a recent conversation with the late David Stevens - who at the time was suffering from cancer - I was intrigued by his idea that many of the Psalms are a kind of swearing at God for all the injustice in the world.

"Life's not fair," the Psalmists scream.  "Life's not fucking fair."  This is from Psalm 55:

"My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me.
Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.
I said, Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest—
I would flee far away and stay in the desert;
I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm."

The Psalmists also frequently confess when they've messed up.  The writer of Psalm 51 berates him/herself:

"For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.  Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. [...] O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise."

On his album Hymns to Swear By, Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama brings this into 21st century language:

“I’ve fucked it up so many times
I’ve fucked it up so many times
I’ve fucked it up so many times
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

Finally, a story.

Spiritual Relief by Anthony de Mello

The Master held that no words were bad if they were used in an appropriate context.

When he was told that one of his disciples was given to swearing, he remarked, "Profanity has been known to offer spiritual relief denied to prayer."

So, should Christians swear in worship to God?