How many writer’s tips are about the rhythm and rhyme, the sound of the syllables? How often are writers told to read pieces aloud as a self-editing tool? If you start to snooze in a dense passage or a long sentence, you’ve probably lost your audience too.

I think I like the time control that rests solely with me when I’m reading: I don’t have to go at a narrator’s pace. Rewind and forward seem a lot of nuisance in audio, though I suppose technology is simplifying that all the time.

I also seem to have a better feeling for space with paper in hand: I always preferred editing on handwritten or typed pages to computer screens. I think a lot of that is upbringing, though. The young generations seem much cozier with audiovisual images, body language and video shorthand than us paperpushers.

And most of the fiction I like is of the sort that would teach, engage and soothe us around a campfire, or huddled in a cave, safe with those we love, holding our fears at bay and looking forward to tomorrow.