We are all part of that global traffic and I think that the effort to make yourself understood and to be not a problem for anyone or to hide your own particuarly is a mistake. I think people will and do value individuality.

Hunting and gathering are in my blood. But I've lived long enough to witness a diminution in the seas, and to notice a fragility where once I saw - or assumed - an endless bounty.

And the sun on the wall of her room, the block of sun with all the tiny flying things in it. When she was little she thought they were the souls of dead insects, still buzzing in the light.

The blank page doesn't bother me. It's the voice in my head (not always my own) that gives me the yips. It's worse when I'm not making stuff up.

Ah, but you, Darkness, you know all this. I tell you night after night. Nothing will shock you. Maybe I go on at you in the hope that there's something beyond you. Some nights I sit here and talk and sob and stare out into the blackness thinking that if I look hard enough I'll see the light behind. But I stay out until the break of day, waiting, hoping, and there's only sunrise again.

And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.

Optimism is necessary even if you don't instinctively feel it.