We need new voices and unconventional narratives to guard against rigidity. Plots that are distinct and lucid and sometimes boiling hot.

Although they covered vast territory, the truthful pieces all said the same thing: see me. See me. So, I tried. I saw bits of myself in some of them, and I saw lots of what I am not and have no ownership of, stories that cover great multitudes of experience that isn’t published, that isn’t relayed, and that isn’t recognisable or even present in our media. I took bits away. I learned.

The problem is not that publications are failing to pass on their enormous profits – it’s that they don’t exist. Very few organisations are making big dollars out of content marketing in its current form. A sponsored post on its own rarely has the pull to pay for itself through traffic alone. That’s not an excuse. Writers should be paid their worth. I think I’m worth at least as much as your next mid-range word herder. But what constitutes a ‘decent rate’ is unsustainable, because the working parts are still out of sync at a market level.

In 2012, I decided to write a novel. Earnestly, the way new novelists do. I sat at my computer and wrote 500 words and thought, gosh, look at me go. I even tweeted something terrible like, ‘Just written the first page of a Man Booker-winning novel.’