The end or the beginning?

It was during my interview at the University of East Anglia in 1992. The professor saw on my application form saw that I was interested in creative writing and asked me if I’d had anything published. When I said no, she asked, ‘Is it necessary?’ I was momentarily dumbstruck.

Wordless because the idea of writing something without a readership was utterly alien. Why would anybody write anything and not want it published? (Apart from a diary, perhaps.) Smiling at my callow consternation, she followed up with: ‘Isn’t writing an end in itself? Do you need a readership to validate your work?’

I was too young to answer with any sophistication. Indeed, it would be another fifteen years before I wrote a publishable novel, by which point my only aim was to be published. I’d written the book specifically for publication and attempted to tick as many boxes