I write to discover something, not so much to set down what I already know. I see ignorance and confusion all around me. I see these things in myself… - Philip Ó Ceallaigh

I think if you've got something to say and you can say it with less, that's the way to go.

I used to write in the Rathmines public library. I was on the dole and living in a bedsit down the road. It was too cold to write at home. I had one of those meters that you had to put 50p into. So I'd go down the library every morning and after lunch to scribble stuff in longhand in the study room there.

The real writers are tenacious creatures, and they found a way long before there were writers workshops and creative writing courses in the universities. In the absence of formal frameworks, personal initiatives and informal frameworks become more important.