As said by Robert McKee: "story isn't a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality." For many writers the act of writing is a cathartic one: it is an attempt for the writer to decipher some truth about themselves and their feelings. A writer weaves a tapestry of starlight, depicting battles with dragons and ogres rather than life's own dark demons. But the needle used is thick with rust from our realities, and it leaves behind stains. What we chose to write reflects our own preferences not only for style, genre and language but certain agendas, thoughts, feelings and experiences. Whilst a work of fiction need not be necessarily about ourselves, there will always be an echo of the writers within their own work.  But this does not mean to say that everything we write is a mirror image of ourselves; Emily Dickinson herself says: "when I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse - it does not mean - me - but a supposed perso...

The tide is breaking against the sand. Do I dance in the spray or watch the stones erode?

Writer. It seems to be something of a dirty word. Were I to go into a room full of Creative Writing students and ask them how many were writers, I wonder how few tentative hands I would see raised. Instead we hedge ourselves, saying we want to be authors, journalists or screenwriters: practical jobs that we can assign a label and a pay-cheque to. We all love writing, but we're ashamed of being writers. In my opinion, as soon as children enter primary school their creativity is culled. These small children are already deciding what they want to be in life: firefighters, police officers, teachers, vets or nurses; all practical and sensible occupations. To say they wanted to grow up to be a writer would be like them saying they wanted to grow into a penguin. A ridiculous notion! Anyone can write; everyone has a book in them : these are the things we're told from the beginning, and as with Rose in Who Do You Think You Are? when we try to be a writer, we're told that...

- Doran Martell. A Feast for Crows: George R. R. Martin