The desire to want to write will only ever be that if the hard work of actually sitting down and doing it remains a luxuriant thought - the do tomorrow syndrome, the manana school of writing in other words. The thought, not the deed is top dog, instead of the other way round, or as my comprehensive school motto more classically put it - Res non verba.

As I've done in several recent articles I'm taking yet another cue from El Hitch; you have to put the hours in, pay the necessary dues. On average he produces 1,000 words of serviceable copy per day.

Writing at such a velocity and of such clarity as Hitchen's generates does n't just occur; the furnace requires more than simple input of raw materials, nothing's going to spontaneously combust into life, without the careful hand of the creator writer stirring the pot, and the culmination of what I've been building up to is: exercise that writing muscle, every day a little ink has to hit the page. Or writing remains an idle dream. Keep supple, stay toned.