The first piece of work I do every morning when I sit down at my desk is to write a blog post that is published on this blog.
Some days it is easy, and the topic comes easily for I will have seen or thought of something from my daily life. It may be to do with a book I am reading or listening to, or it may spring from my work or something that is in the news.
Some days it is not so easy and there is the danger of staring at a blinking cursor on a Word document for a while. But the more times I do it the easier it becomes.
Even this morning, when I could think of nothing, I decided to write about the occasional difficulty of doing it. But doing that, as I am now doing, solves the problem.
One thing that I have thought about recently is Graham Greene’s use of words to describe things in this books, and most especially the use of similes. His use of similes is so effective that you immediately form an image in your mind of the thing or person he is trying to describe.
It is a tremendously effective tool that Greene deploys with great frequency in his writing. Not only is it effective but it makes his books hugely accessible and easy to read.