A good few years ago, the actor Dustin Hoffman was lured over to the UK to play Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and a film crew, typically enough, followed his progress. One would have imagined the acclaimed method actor would have had little problem absorbing himself in such a part but he found himself ill equipped and I remember clearly at one juncture Hoffman goes over to the film crew, looks the camera lens full in the eye, and said, “This is hard. This is bloody hard.”

The same happened when Alison Moyet – known in the trade as “The Voice” – got the chance to sing some opera; she was totally unprepared for what was being asked of her.

I’ve written fiction since I was thirteen but very little non-fiction. I found writing a blog, even one that only appears twice a week, quite a task; the time constraint alone was daunting and it’s taken me several months to get into the swing of it.

Having looked over things like pitch letters and press releases I’m starting to realise that this is a whole different ball game and maybe one I’m not suited to. That said, the Web is awash with how-to sites, a little too many for my tastes because you can become swamped with information (as I did with SEO) if you’re not careful.