It’s difficult to imagine the world without Jude Zietara, who died suddenly on the 3rd of April 2026. He was a blaze of light, a comet in the night sky, a magical creature, an original thinker and bursting with creative potential. He was only 24 when he left us.
I want to use this space to share my happy memories of Jude. (more…)
I just had an insight: writer’s block isn’t a single obstacle on the road to productivity; it’s not just a feeling of depression that removes the motivation to write.
I’m having a writer’s block moment right now and I want to describe it. In short, writer’s block is a lot of “chatter” that’s holding me back — but I need to explain the meaning of this, provide some background, or it won’t make any sense. Hopefully this article will help anyone who’s struggling to write and is being held back by their inner critic saying things like: “You’re not good enough! Nobody gives a damn about what you think! Don’t bother! Go back to bed!”
If you have an inner critic who stops you from writing, or being creative, you’re not alone. I’ve learned to deal with mine by writing about him. But that’s another story (it’s actually a half-written book).
Another creativity-killer is perfectionism, in which the inner critic takes over completely and stops the host body from even attempting to do something creative — as it will never be “perfect”. Luckily I don’t suffer from that condition, perhaps because my mother used to say “Nobody’s perfect.”
What’s this new revelation about writer’s block?
In answer to my own question — What is Writer’s Block? — I can reply with a one word answer: distractions. In other words social networks, the news, AI, email and so on. It’s tempting to say that this is all new (“I blame it on social media!”) but I’m sure writers have been plagued with Writer’s Block ever since the first ancient scribe put quill to parchment and dreamed of damsels in distress.
Surely this is a problem that everyone faces, when trying to do something creative — or even tasks around the house that you “should” be doing?
A more important question is: How do you deal with these distractions? Hopefully you, the person reading this, will share your insights (leave a comment below) but for my part I’d like to explain what happened to me this morning and what experience has taught me in terms of dealing with it.
To put this story into context I need to give you a little context. What am I up to? I’m preparing to publish my next book — 12 Jobs in 12 Months — with a new Edinburgh publisher called Stone Book Press. My main task is building up my profile on YouTube — making lots of videos and planning a book promotion tour that will consist of me selling copies directly on the street (I call it “book busking”).
Some people think you can write a book, or be creative, whenever you feel inspired. But moments of inspiration are rare and, as far as I’m concerned, the only way to write a book, or an article for that matter, is to have a strict routine: a time of day when you start and a minimum number of hours actually working. I keep a log of when I start (I aim for 7am) and have a daily target of how much time I plan to work. I also keep a record of how many minutes I actually worked. I aim for about 4 hours a day but when I’m travelling, or working on gardening jobs, it drops to an hour a day. If you want to see my log (a spreadsheet), and how often I’ve missed my own goals, I’d be happy to share it with you. You might find it useful as a way to monitor your own writing routine.
I’m always adjusting my work plan and my latest resolution is to get up every morning at 5am and do at least two hours of work. Then I can have a break, maybe a nap, do some more writing or maybe something else. This routine works best when I have another job, like gardening, as then I must finish writing by 8am. But when I have the whole day available it feels like I have endless time (12 hours) and the next thing I know I’m endlessly watching YouTube videos about Russia burning itself out in Ukraine.
So what happened today?
This morning I got up at a quarter to five — just before my alarm was about to go off — and I was fully charged and ready to write. My brain was clear as a good sleep had swept away yesterday’s fog of fatigue and excess information. I knew this was a perfect moment to write as all the elements of creative energy and motivation were in place. All I had to do was go upstairs, into the attic where I’ve made a cosy writer’s den.
What I did instead was go downstairs to make a cup of tea, a task that shouldn’t have taken more than five minutes. But then, as the kettle boiled, I took my phone (which I always leave downstairs as it distracts me at night, preventing a good sleep) and made the first of several bad deals with myself:
“I’ll listen to a short update from Ukraine,” I said to myself, turning on YouTube, “and go upstairs in a couple of minutes.”
The kettle was boiled, the tea was ready but I’d moved on…to another video. This one was about the mad leader of the USA leading their nation into the pit of doom (it’s like watching a car crash in slow motion).
Meanwhile my girlfriend’s sausage dogs were demanding food and that would only take a couple of minutes — and I filled the audio gap with a video about China threatening Taiwan — and I may as well light the fire as Lesley, my girlfriend, will be working at home today.
Half an hour zipped by and I convinced myself that I’d worked up an appetite. “There’s some mushrooms in the fridge that need eating”, I said to myself, “some nice bread — and I can watch another interesting video. I’ve earned myself breakfast after all that hard work!”
By the time I made it to the attic, an hour and a half had gone by — where? I have no idea! — but my energy had gone. I was ready for a nap. I lay on the sofa, listened to another video, and vegetated. Referring to my log for that day I started work at 06:26 but knocked off an hour later. Pathetic. I started again at 08:43 and worked for three hours. Better. Then I did a final flourish at 16:01 for a two hour session. That wasn’t bad for a day’s work — five hours in total — but if I’d started at 06:00 I could’ve been done by 11:00 and for the whole afternoon I could’ve done other stuff.
What Can be Done About Writer’s Block?
I remember working in Romania just after the fall of Communism and every time there was a problem the government would pass a law, and declare it solved — even though everyone would ignore that particular law, as well as all the other “emergency government ordinances” that were passed almost daily.
Can someone invent a law to ban Writer’s Block? It’s a nice idea if you don’t think about it for more than a few minutes.
The only real answer is obvious — an enforcement regime. In government terms that would mean a police force and a legal system but for a writer it just means following your own routine. Doing what you have set out to do. Sticking to your own plan — which is a lot harder to do when nobody is watching over you, nobody is expecting anything from you, nobody is going to give you a hard time for not delivering.
Following my own routine is easy when I’m writing a book because every morning I can easily pick up from where I left off. This advice from Hemingway also helped me: “Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. Then next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won’t have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function)…”
The problem with writing an article is that you have to come up with a new idea, as you do with a book, but might not have the momentum that you can get when writing a book (each day you just pick up from where you left off). It takes a lot of mental energy to not only come up with an idea but to actually get out of bed and start writing the damn thing. But once you get over these immense barriers and the article starts to flow, you feel a thrilling sense of excitement, and the material flows quickly. When in article-writing-mode I can knock out a good article in a few hours–if not it can take weeks.
What advice have I got for other people?
I would say don’t bother writing as getting published is a thankless task that often ends in humiliation. It’s the worst way to get rich and famous, or even acknowledged. But that misses the point as I know that a writer writes because he/she has to. It’s a way of expressing yourself and it doesn’t ultimately matter if anyone reads it or not. The value of writing is in the act of doing it.
I write because it’s the best way I can think about things. When I talk I easily get diverted, side-tracked, or obsessive about getting my point across. I can become a bore. When writing I can be reasonable, moderate, kind and (hopefully) interesting.
The best bit of advice about how to write is just set yourself a daily programme, but don’t work more than 4 hours a day (the bigshot writers say that after four hours your brain essentially runs out of creativity). Even with just 30 minutes a day you could write a book in a year, if you simply pick up from where you left off.
And Writer’s Block? All you can do is learn to deal with it and accept the fact that some days are going to be duds.
Let me know what you think? If you relate to any of this please leave a comment or on my YouTube channel.
This article was published in a London literary blog called Pen to Print.
The photo linked to this article is of a collage made by me, myself and I. It features some great artwork by Jim Hutcheson, Scotland’s best book designer, and also an old Hungarian banknote showing a family fleeing from chaos or war. Cheery stuff.
Photo: Dylan Thomas by Lee Miller.
There’s plenty of videos, articles and books about how to write a book, make a video, do any kind of art form, or even learn a trade — and this is great as it gives people enough of an insight to try things out.
But I’ve never come across anything that discusses why we should work. Maybe it’s so embedded in our culture, from our earliest years, all through school and over family meals, that it’s just taken for granted that we simply have to get a job after our educational process. Like walking or breathing, we just do it. But why?
Why do I work?
The starting point for me was when I was 9 years old, the age that I became aware that I was an independent entity and didn’t have to rely on my parents for everything. But I had a problem with school — I didn’t understand why I was there or what was going on. I felt stupid, bored and angry. I took out my frustrations on my three brothers, all of whom got on really well at school, and we fought like cat and dog most days of the week.
I knew I had to get away from the toxic family environment I had created and the first opportunity was to visit my aunt Virginia in England (we lived in Scotland). I was allowed to get the train to visit her and nobody blinked an eyelid that I was travelling alone. This, to me, was excitement and independence and when my cousin taught me how to smoke cigarettes I felt very grown up.
At around that age I realised that work (doing a job) was another means of getting away from my brothers, from boredom, and the expectation to do homework. It was also what adults spent their days doing so it had, for me, a certain allure, an attraction.
My first “job” was more like a short lived company: I would cut down Christmas trees in the local woods — we lived in deep countryside near the Scottish town of Peebles — and sell them to neighbours. It was a powerful moment as I was proving to myself that I could take a step towards independence.
My next big moment was at university in Liverpool where I realised that going to lectures, reading books in the library, and hanging out with my geeky colleagues was really boring. I met a relative at a wedding who put me in touch with a property developer who hired me as a labourer on his building site — and I was in heaven as most of the tradesmen on site were ex-cons and the banter was hilarious. Lunch break consisted of going to the pub and drinking as much beer as we could. One of them later told me, “What we like about you Rupert is that we can take the piss, but you don’t take offence. It’s like water off a duck’s back.” That was high praise from a tough scouser who’d spent three years inside for burglary.
By this stage in life I had worked out how to play the educational game — a minimal effort would see me through. The burden I’d carried through my first 10 years of school — that I’m an idiot — had been replaced with a powerful confidence that I could do anything I put my mind to — and a drive to help others get over those same barriers. The fact that I’d been able to get work easily — driving a truck for my Dad and selling books for my Mum’s publishing company were other jobs I did when a student — added to my self confidence. And confidence is a key requirement when travelling independently or getting jobs.
After university I avoided the siren call of big business and decided to hitchhike to Shanghai, and prove to myself that I’d be able to get a job without the benign influence of my parents. I never made it to Shanghai as I fell in love with Tibet where I found work as an English teacher, got kicked out by the Chinese police and ended up falling into journalism.
Since then I worked as a volunteer aid worker in Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina and, after getting married, I realised that I needed to earn some real money. I managed to worm my way into working as a consultant for EU and British government projects in Romania, Russia and the former Yugoslavia. I also worked as a PR consultant and, since lockdown, as a painter/decorator and gardener.
If I look back and ask myself why I did all those jobs, and what drove me, the main answer can be summed up in one word: independence. It’s all very well wanting to be independent but how can you survive for more than a few months on your savings? You may have rich parents but they’ll probably be worried, nagging you to come home, find a suitable wife, get a well paid job (“Daddy will arrange it!”) and settle down. You’ll soon realise that the only way to stay on the road, to maintain your independence, is to not only get a job — but learn how to get jobs quickly, anywhere.
But that’s not a complete answer; there’s something else at play here. I need to work or I get bored, lazy and depressed. The fact that work gives me motivation to get up in the morning, and provides an easy-to-follow programme for the day is what I’ve grown up with. It’s a part of my culture.
I first became aware of this problem — the sloth that comes with unemployment — when I finished running an EU project in Romania. The project had been really demanding, it required all my energy and time, and I was looking forward to a few months off when I’d be able to catch up with my sleep, hobbies, house repairs etc. But what happened? Nothing. Doing the most basic tasks seemed to take forever. All my energy, drive, and focus just evaporated. Why? Because I didn’t have anything I had to do every day; I had no reason to get up in the morning. When your intention is to do hobbies or exercises you always have a choice: shall I do it today or not? With work you don’t have that choice — you just have to show up.
In order to stay motivated, structured and focused I realised that I need a job — or an intense project — or I would enable the lazy part of my character, get nothing done and end up being miserable. I need a job of some sort to get out of bed in the morning.
Retirement is a useful concept to end this article on, but I think that it’s a trap. If I stop working in four years time, at the age of 67, as one is supposed to do, it will emotionally disable me and probably lead to an early grave. I intend to work until I drop, or have to be carried off, gibbering and dribbling, to a care home.
So, in conclusion, why work? I do it so I can live happily and longer than I would do otherwise.
Now it’s over to you: Will you leave a comment below? Most comments add to the richness of my articles. Maybe you could explain what motivates you to work? Or not; I’d also be interested in any comments that explains the rationale for not working, or describing something other than work which can provide the daily motivation we all need to go on. Or maybe you could just tell the story of your first job?
My book 12 Jobs in 12 Months will be published in February 2026, by Stone Books (Edinburgh).
Final note: the photo associated with this article is of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, by Lee Miller.
If you're pressed for time, scroll down and see links to some really useful resources.
What does “The Psychology of Travel” mean? Is it some weird form of therapy? Am I a psychologist? The answer to these questions is NO, but I used to get mistaken for a therapist when I worked for a rehab clinic.
The psychology of travel is a means of preparing mentally for independent travel. It's valid for students about to leave education and embark on the great journey of life, as well as older people stuck in jobs or worrying about what to do in retirement.
I think the psychology of travel the most important thing to do before embarking on a long journey. It took me years and I wrote about it in my first travel book, 9 Months in Tibet.
When travelling for up to a year, or leaving home, you need to prepare psychologically. This is very different from “normal” travelling when you know exactly where you’re going and for how long. When you go on holiday, or a short trip, you don’t need to make any internal changes to the way you approach life. But when travelling properly you need to have no deadline; you may be travelling indefinitely -- or at least until you find a place that fits.
I developed the term after getting back from a trip to Thailand and India and suffering what is known as “culture shock”. Thailand had been so exotic and India so amazing that getting back to a grim and freezing homeland (Scotland) was really depressing. I also wanted to avoid what happened to me after that trip which was to become a pub bore on travelling in Asia, in fact that was why I started writing (to get the experiences out of my system and move on).
I went through a big learning curve after my first Asian trip and I really want to help people overcome the fear of travelling alone -- which held me back for many years -- share my experience of humility (which is essential for getting along with random strangers and also how to get jobs in foreign countries. My new book is called 12 Jobs in 12 Months and its aim is to help people realise that getting a job is easy if you have the right attitude.
Phases of Independent Travel
I think there are three phases of independent travel:
Each one of these phases is critical for the independent traveller: if you don’t learn how to “let go” of things at home you’ll never get away; if you don’t develop the right attitude towards people you’ll meet on the road you risk getting ripped off; and if you don’t prepare for the psychological shock of coming home you could end up in a depression.
If you want to travel independently you’ll need to develop a series of skills that will help you to cruise through these challenges, but like any new skills you need to practice them.
When I first wanted to travel independently I had three big problems: fear, no cash and no source of inspiration. I overcame my fear by a series of near-death experiences, all described in my Tibet book; I earned cash by driving a truck (and realised that earning money was the easiest problem to overcome); and I found inspiration by reading Bruce Chatwin and Ryszard Kapuscinski.
If you need inspiration to get up and go you might like the following articles, all of which have been written for people who want to start travelling independently (or escape from home):
Sources of Inspiration for future travellers
Get in Touch
I set up this blog to inspire people to travel independently, find work and get into their creative groove. That's what I've been doing for the last 40 years -- travelling, working and writing. I’m keen to write more articles about the psychological issues around travel, so I’d be very grateful if you would suggest a topic you’d like to learn more about. You can suggest a new topic, and experience or insight, by leaving a comment below this article.
First published in 2021, revised and updated in 2025.
#thepsychologyoftravel
When someone asks me “How did you get 12 Jobs in 12 Months? (the title of my forthcoming book) I go into a rant about the usual approach to getting a job: someone does a CV with the help of AI; it goes to the employer who, with the help of AI, assesses the CV and … ignores it. My friend Steve Harvey calls it “AI tennis!” The result: rejection, anxiety and despair.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
When I was leaving university, in Liverpool, I decided to avoid the big companies that were hoovering up my friends. I saw a fixed career as a trap, with mortgages and marriage as the manacles. I wanted independence, variety, risk and excitement. My plan was to learn to be an English teacher and hitchhike to Shanghai. I never made it there but I did spend 9 Months in Tibet, 17 years in Romania and I always found work.
I know this life isn’t for everyone and I respect anyone who is happy in their work. But I think it’s important that everyone knows that going freelance, or working for yourself, is a respectable choice. The purpose of this article is to analyse my approach and assure you that a stable, even stellar, income is possible. You don’t have to hit the road, sleep rough and hope for the best. You also don’t need AI to follow this advice/lifestyle.
For this article I worked out the ingredients that enabled me to get job after job over the last 40 years.
Be Positive
This sounds a bit flaky, hippy and new age-ish but I think it’s the most important ingredient of all. There are so many negatives about getting a job that a lot of positive thinking, or self confidence, is needed. It’s comparable to Harry Potter who uses the Patronus Charm, based on a happy memory, to stand up to the Dementors — which represent “the overwhelming feeling caused by depression.”
I can’t offer any advice about how to go from a negative to a positive state of mind; it’s really hard and the usual suggestions seem glib and useless. What I can do is describe how I made that transition.
I still remember clearly the feelings of despair and hopelessness I felt during the first 10 years of my schooling (from the age of 5 to 15). I didn’t understand why I was there or what was going on, and concluded that I must be stupid. I became sullen and aggressive and it was only at the age of 15 did I see a point in school (getting qualifications). When I realised “I can do this,” the following thought was: “I can do anything I put my mind to!” That was the birth of my self-confidence — a realisation that the last 10 years had been hellish because of my negative frame of mind — and I’ve never looked back, or lost that rocket fuel of confidence. Since then I have made a living as a freelance journalist, aid worker, PR consultant and, since lockdown, painter and decorator.
Help People
Working for someone because you want to help them is so much more motivating than doing a job just to make money. Why is this? If you’re just doing a job for money you’ll soon see the defective way the organisation is run, the boss may get on your nerves, you’ll probably join in the bitching and moaning that goes on in most workplaces and you might end up feeling depressed about your own role in it all.
My motivation in life is to help people and if I look back over my career I did journalism, writing and PR consultancy (informing people), aid work (helping the most disadvantaged) and, recently, painting and decorating (helping people transform their homes).
One of the reasons I suggest people should learn a trade is because you can work for real people, individual home-owners, not managers of big building companies who often don’t really believe in what they’re doing. The owner of a house knows exactly what they want — for example painting a bedroom — and they’ll probably show a lot more gratitude than you’d get from a big company. I always feel a great sense of satisfaction after jobs for real people.
Build Reputation
People often ask me “How did you get that job?” and the answer is based on my reputation, in other words the last person I worked for said I was a hard worker.
If you work your guts out on whatever job you’ve got, not only will it help the time pass quicker but your efforts will be noticed — and the boss may recommend you to another employer. This is how I’ve gone from job to job over the last 40 years. Marketing experts say that “word of mouth” is the best marketing method ever..
But reputation is useless when it comes to applying for jobs online, as you’re up against hundreds of competitors and the HR (Human Resources) people learn to be sceptical as so many applicants lie in their CVs. Recommendations, by someone who has actually worked with you, are far more reliable. AI is also useless at helping you build a reputation for reliability, cheeriness and hard work.
Networking
For me, networking is simply telling people that I’m looking for a job. This works incredibly well for two reasons: people are kind and they want to help; and also because it’s unusual — very few people ask others to help them find work. How many people do you know who have asked for your help in finding a job? None? It seems that looking for work is a solitary, lonely process, not one that should be shared with friends. This turns a potentially exciting task into a stretch in solitary confinement.
I’ve been to a few “networking events” and they were a nightmare, as everyone in the room was looking for a job. To me, these formal events aren’t real networking — they’re just an opportunity for someone to make money from us gullible job seekers paying an entrance fee. Real networking is free and, in my experience, highly effective.
One of the main things I do when looking for work is to avoid competition and the bureaucracy of HR departments. I’ve never got a job — or even a simple answer — by applying formally. The closest I came was when I was invited to join consultancy teams for EU-funded projects in Eastern Europe, and I would then have to get my CV into a particular format and prove that everything written there was true.
There’s so much opportunity when you speak (network) with people individually. There’s so much work to be done and every boss seems to complain about how hard it is to find good staff. Clearly, the oh-so-clever-AI-enabled HR systems aren’t working. They just create more bureaucracy, confusion and depression.
Not sure what to do? Just tell someone you’re looking for a job, or ask me! You can write a comment below, telling me what sort of job you want and maybe I can offer some advice.
Some more key words: flexibility and follow-up. Although you should have an idea of what work you’re looking for, you need to be flexible when networking. If a slightly different opportunity comes up — grab it with both hands. Especially if it sounds good and will burnish your reputation — even if it’s a crappy job you should do it as you’ll learn something and most bosses want to hire people who are currently working somewhere. Every job is a precious step towards your ideal job. And follow people up. So many times I’ve heard people recommend a job, an opportunity, a contact and the person I’m with nods or shrugs but doesn’t take down the all important contact details. Get a small notebook and always have it on you. Without follow-up, networking is useless.
Be Humble
For me, this is the secret sauce. I went from advising the Romanian government, being paid big bucks by the EU, getting invited to embassy parties in Bucharest and Moscow, to clearing gardens, painting houses and dressing like a tramp. If it wasn’t for my humility I would have felt like a failure as conventional wisdom says that you shouldn’t get work that is “below your station”.
In fact the transition from consultancy to manual labour, which happened during lockdown, has been a joy. I’ve long been aware that the high-flying-well-paid consultancy work I used to do came with a risk of vanity and arrogance, and so I worked on my humility: be grateful for what I have, appreciate simple things like camping (or helping people), be aware that some people have nothing — we have so much compared to people in Gaza or Sudan. The result: I’m grateful when I get offered the simplest, dirtiest job and I do them all with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. It’s also a joy to work outside even if it’s cold and wet — if you’re working hard you won’t feel the cold, and if you’re gardening you’ll appreciate the rain.
Finally, a note about my latest book: 12 Jobs in 12 Months. If you read the book’s initial introduction you’ll see that it came about through networking, flexibility, blind faith and relentless follow up. It has nothing to do with AI.
Now it’s over to you. I’d love to hear your story. What was your first job? Have you found it hard to get hired? What has been the most challenging aspect of getting a job as a student? And if you have ever felt stuck in your job, what helped you get unstuck? Do you have any advice for people looking for a job? Please add a comment below.