I like to think of myself as a patient person. But I expect patience is one of those things like driving, where we all think we’re above average, but we can’t possibly all be above average, can we?

In the last 12 months I’ve had to learn that patience is a huge part of being a writer. But I don’t like it. The publishing business seems to move at the pace of a snail covered in treacle driving an electric car up a hill in reverse. Decisions take weeks. Action takes months. Negotiation takes forever.

Compared to all of that, writing is a speedy whippet of a thing, breezing through a racehorse stable with a jetpack. Trouble is, that makes it all the more frustrating that projects progress so slowly. To be honest, even when things are going well I find it incredibly demoralising. Maybe this is a symptom of my short attention span. Sometimes I get news (good, bad, indifferent) on projects I’ve forgotten I’m even involved with.

It makes me think that if I had the technical expertise I would just bypass the whole industry and publish everything I write on a website to sell (or give away) my stories directly. I’m not talking about rushing out something that’s substandard. I still take great care over what I write and I never even show it to anybody until I’m happy that it’s as good as it can possibly be. Then I enjoy the process of continuing to rewrite to satisfy excellent notes from my agent and editors. It’s everything else that seems to take so long.

Surely the future is quicker…