How long does a nap have to be before it ceases to be a nap and becomes just plain sleeping?

I write because I have to write. It is something I cannot explain, the need to put words down on paper. Often I do not even know what words will emerge until my pen travels over the blank sheet and its ink forms individual letters, leading up to words and phrases and sentences.

Yet at the same time, I do not feel that I have anything to say.

"Write a book," friends have suggested.

"A book about what?" I ask. I have no idea. My mind is blank.

It is terrible to have the compulsion to write and yet not have anything to write about. That is why I write about my life — it is the only thing I know to speak of, the only topic on which I can converse with any authority. At least, in chronicling my life, the well of ideas can never run dry, for it is filled afresh each day and no two days are exactly alike.

I have never written anything in spurts and am afraid to do it now. Much of what I write has never seen draft form: I just plonk it on a page, and it is there.

On the rare occasions when I have left a piece unfinished, it has inevitably remained unfinished; frozen in time, in stasis, never achieving full splendour.

I have a fear of breaking off my writing. For me, it is not breaking up but breaking off, because I find that when I come back to it I have lost my original train of thought and do not want to board another. To do so would be disloyal to my initial muse. I still want to capture the picture that danced in my mind's eye at the beginning; I am reluctant to loosen my hold on it, and am even more reluctant to allow it to morph into an image I do not recognise. If it slips through my fingers, I would rather leave my unfinished piece as a monument to its brief existence and mourn the loss of potential greatness.

I do not like to take something which I know ought to have pointed in one direction and turn it to another instead. This is why I am so afraid to write a novel. It is impossible to write a novel in one sitting — in fact, some authors have laboured over their works for years and years. I am afraid I will write something on one day from which I cannot continue on the next.

So it is not the infamous writer's block that I fear, but my own stubborn sense of procedure and process. This should be followed by this and cannot be substituted by that. If I get stuck in such a manner I know I will never finish and it is safer not to begin than to endure the frustration and self-disgust at not finishing.

People say you must first read in order to be able to write. That's long been a belief I share.

Look at all the great writers: every single one was a voracious reader. Perhaps reading sows seeds in the imagination, perhaps it teaches us the wonder of paying attention to the images we see in our heads, perhaps it gives us the words to use to describe those ever-changing pictures. Whatever it does, one thing is clear: reading supports writing.

But I have, I feel, wasted ten years of my life reading 'trash'. As a friend once said, for a bibliophile, I've read all the wrong books.

The truth is that trash is easier to read. Undemanding and comforting in its very predictability, trash doesn't demand intense concentration or a focussed mind. It neither stimulates thought nor requires chewing and digesting.

So I am a lazy reader. I read only to be entertained, and, in some ways, to escape. I do not want to engage my faculties any deeper than the very minimum required for mindless enjoyment.

Somehow, in my mind, my reading habits have come to be associated with lax morals. As an aspiring writer, I am ashamed of my lax morals, evidenced by my choice of dubious reading matter. I am convinced my actions have adversely affected my reputation and standing within the writing community. I believe I will never be a good writer because I have not read good books.