Become a writer this summer

There was once a would-be writer who found every reason not to write. The winter was too depressingly cold, the autumn too busy, spring too – well, sprung. As for summer, who’d want to be incarcerated in a room with an accusing blank screen when there is such fun to be had outdoors? Certainly not our would-be (but so-easily-distracted) writer, who postponed all literary ambitions for another season, another time. It rained, another summer passed, but the writing dream remained. Forever.

The moral: if you want to be a writer, summer is no reason to procrastinate. On the contrary, it’s the perfect time to start.

‘How?’ you ask. ‘Where? When? With the family yapping at my feet and friends enticing me outside and holiday companies luring me with cheap deals, how on earth do I muster the will to string even one intelligent sentence together?’

Excellent questions, and the very act of asking them shows that you’re already on your way. Writers, you see, do little else but ask question after question – which they then try to answer. And in response to yours I shall offer you some ammunition to defy the promise of good weather or competing demands – to say to everyone, including your tentative self, that you have the right to write. Especially in the summer.

Shelley Weiner is an acclaimed novelist, short-story writer, journalist and creative writing tutor at Faber Academy. To view the full Faber Academy summer programme visit faberacademy.co.uk @FaberAcademy