There is a phrase I come back to often.  Three simple words. No drama. No noise. 

Onwards and upwards.

I did not arrive at writing through shortcuts, hacks, or sudden inspiration. I arrived the long way round.

I started with paper and pencil at the age of eight. Not because I knew where it would lead, but because something inside me needed to put words somewhere safe. I did not know then that writing would become a lifelong companion. I only knew that silence felt heavier without it.

It took over ten years to write my first novel. Ten years of doubt, interruption, learning, starting again, and discovering the hard truth that finishing matters more than talent. That book was finally published in 2011. Not because it was perfect, but because I refused to abandon it.

Since then, I have learned something vital that no course ever teaches you.

Writing is not an event.

It is a practice.

I get up at five in the morning. Sometimes earlier. Every day. Not to wait for inspiration, but to meet it halfway. Some mornings I write fiction. Some mornings I market, edit, analyse, or plan. It is not glamorous. It is disciplined. And discipline, quietly applied, compounds.

During the pandemic, when the world slowed and uncertainty pressed in from every direction, I wrote. That period became the foundation of The Brittle Saga trilogy. While others waited for normality to return, I built something that would outlast the moment.

I wrote after breaking seven ribs falling down a rocky gully. Breathing hurt. Sitting hurt. Writing hurt. I wrote anyway.

I wrote throughout cancer treatment. Three years now, by Easter. Chemotherapy strips things away. Energy. Certainty. Comfort. The weight loss and emotional roller-coaster were constantly trying to rip away my resolve. What it did not strip away was my need to write. Some days the words were slow. Some days they barely came. But I showed up. And showing up matters more than speed.

I never gave up.

I never surrendered.

That is not bravado. It is simply truth.

If you are a writer reading this and wondering whether persistence really makes a difference, let me tell you plainly. It does. Not always immediately. Not always visibly. But it works its way into everything. Into skill. Into voice. Into resilience.

You do not need to write every day to be a writer. But you do need to keep coming back. You do not need validation to continue. You need conviction. And sometimes, all that conviction looks like is opening the notebook again when it would be easier not to.

Onwards and upwards does not mean constant success. It means refusing to retreat. It means accepting setbacks without letting them redefine you. It means trusting that small, repeated acts of commitment add up to something larger than any single book, post, or result.

There is a line that runs from that eight-year-old with a pencil to the man writing this at 05:42 on a Sunday morning. The man who still gets up before dawn and chooses words over silence. 

If you are still writing, despite everything life has thrown at you, you are already making your mark.

Keep going. Never give in.

Onwards and upwards.

Copyright © Tom Kane 2026