Is that your dog?

Yes, but keep your voice down please, she’s sleeping.

I’ve always done something creative with my midnight hours.

When I was 16, my brother and I found an old guitar in the garage and taught ourselves to play it, badly at first and then almost quite well. When I was 21, I picked up a copy of Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord at an airport bookstore and had a genuine epiphany. I knew then that I would write a book, and I also knew (vaguely) how.

Wrapped up in the usual trappings of youth, doomed love and sad songs, I didn’t start writing in earnest until a few years later. With no formal training in writing I had to learn on the job, writing furiously and reading about 60 books a year which I have done ever since. I was writing late at night or stealing time in the early mornings, fueled by coffee, whiskey and liquorice.

Since then, I've faced all the rejection they say you will. I have written anyway. I have become an early morning writer, a feature in a few local coffeeshops, headphones on, black coffee steaming auspiciously at my elbow. I’m usually quite a private person, but I’ve sat in public, tears running down my face while writing certain parts of these stories, the world of fiction superimposing itself upon my real life as it does from time to time.

So, if you are ever in a Durban café, one of the good ones, and you see a guy with tattoos and a beard drinking coffee and crying, don’t worry, I’m fine. I’m more than fine even. I’m processing my demons, banishing depression and doing what I love. I'm writing.