So two things: I think it's very dangerous to ever think ofany kind of writing as a career. I say that very sincerely, as advice, because I think in truth, they do use that word nowadays, people who say: "Oh, my career."

But really, I think that most artistic people who've everdone anything don't really think of it as a career, and you just kind of blindly go into it. As my writing tutor would say: “you do it because you have to, because you have a compulsion, because you can't not do it in a way.” So I think that's one way of looking at it.

Another probably more straightforward answer to that question was: everyone always used to tell me I was really good at writing, and my teachers would say “you would be a writer.” And I thought: "I don't know about that" because at that point I thought, "I want to do film! I wanna be a film director!" So, there was a slight change there.

Then I started writing something when I was at university. Therewas someone who was quite a big public figure - he used to write in the papers, etc. And so when someone said, "oh, you should show it to him", I showed it to him, and then he sent it to a literary agent. That's how I got my first literary agent, on the basis of like, 50 pages of an unfinished thing.

Then teaching. I think naturally, it goes with it. You'll find loads of writers throughout time have also been teachers. And I think there are a couple of good things about it:

One, it protects your writing time because you're only doing it for certain hours, and then you have writing time, especially with my student schedule.

Two, if you are writing, you spend time reading and rereading and rereading books (which you do anyway), but you reread them differently when you have to teach them to someone else and make it understood. So I think those two go together. Plus it's always good to encourage young people to think.

Yeah, it's a good question, it's a very good question.

In teaching students, I think what I really like is thatmost of my students, at any rate (I think I'm lucky in that way), respond to being taught the hard stuff.

As in, I'm not very good at dumbing things down. I talk to students of different ages in a quite similar way, and in a quite similar way to the way I talk to an adult. I think that a lot of students and young people, more than people imagine, respond to the idea that you're respecting them and giving them the the respect of thinking that they have the intelligence to try and reach towards something interesting - so if it's philosophical or it's the core meaning of something rather than just an easy slap on way of looking at it. I think that's always really lovely. But I think I have very nice students! I think that's what it is.

In writing, its a mixed joy I think, if you ask any writer of the complete pain, and also pleasure in that. The process is constantly mixed. You'll also find a similar thing that many writers have an incredible mix of extreme insecurity - extreme sense that this is the worst thing ever - and a completely inflated sense that they're about to revolutionize the world. It's that mixed feeling, but I think at the same time for me, it's probably spending the time to contemplate on what's really going on at the deepest layers of people's psychology.

There are psychological insights, and then there are what'sreally happening. Why has someone done this thing that seems to not make sense and trying to make sense of that? That's a difficult process. It takes a lot of patience and reading and self reflection, all sorts of things.

Yeah, I think everyone does. I think it's a mixed thing, that particular form of writer's block. I work at it every day.

I think that's the key thing: that you should be doing itevery day. You should be writing every day, reading every day, watching films every day, thinking about art…maybe not every day, but very frequently. I think if you stick to it as a practice, that's important. If you're writing by yourself, I think there are only so many hours in the day that you can actually realistically do.

Sometimes I'd find that I only did 20 minutes of writing. It was good, but it was done because you can't push yourself beyond that. Ernest Hemingway used to say: “stop. Before you kind of reach that point of fatigue”, give yourself something to pick up on tomorrow, don't go all the way to the end. So that's important.

But I often write with a writing partner now, and when I dothat, you can do it for longer, because you've got someone else that you're chatting with, you're discussing, you're kind of: “oh, what about this”. So it's writer's block in the form of: you can chip away at it.

I think the challenge is always to figure out what this thing that you're writing means. What is it that I'm trying to say? What is this thing actually about? Because sometimes you can write something long, and if it's not thought through, you may end up with a problem that's completely insoluble because it becomes structural.

But on the flip side of that, the other famous and truthful thing is you write to find out. So you've got to be able to handle: I write to find out, but also I have a sense of where I'm going. That's not an easy thing.

Yes, that's a good question.

I made a short film called Spoor, S-P-O-O-R, which means trace. It's a word in English, but it's from Afrikaans. The film is body horror; it's about the way that trauma is passed on from generation to generation.

Very specifically, which is a very niche topic, it's aboutthe experience of Indians who were taken to South Africa by the British, initially as enslaved people; it's very oblique. But I think it does communicate its message because it's an unusual bit of history that a lot of people don't know, and it's not explicitly stated.

I think people understand it in a couple of ways. Some people struggle because they don't know what that bit is, but most people understand the psychological impulse of it. I think that I am proud of that because it's well structured. That's my one thing.

Also, films are a big undertaking. It’s also recent, fairlyrecent. But I think it communicates its message in a heightened visual way. I think you feel it rather than having to have it explained to you, in a way.

It's very hard. It changes all the time. I think that's the tricky thing, and it's one of those things that sometimes people say: “Ugh, you listen to people who write things and they never tell you the truth!”

Well firstly, there are people who are very helpful. George Saunders is a writer who I think is extremely helpful, if you watch his videos or read his interviews. But I think it's sometimes hard to communicate the process because it is slightly mysterious.

If I was writing prose, one aspect is: I think, firstly, what appeals to me. It almost always is with a character, with a situation. Not with a: “oh, I'm going to write about X.” It's not: “I want to explore racism in this.” It's more like: “what's this character doing? What does it mean?”

And then, there'sa lot of playing around with style, which is sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious of: “what person should this be in? What's the angle? What's the voice?” So, I think playing around, fiddling with that, which then takes on its own kind of mind.

As for the short film, sometimes it's like an image or a moment that makes you think: “well, what does this mean?”

I actually get really bad back pain, so someone was having a look at that for me, and I said, “what have you gotten in there?” It seems like recording equipment or electrical equipment. I thought, “Oh, that's a metaphor. Someone's given me a good metaphor. What's that for?” Then you extrapolate from there.

So, it'salways different. I would say, over time, I think you learn the type of thing you're actually interested in, the meaning that you work towards, and how your stories do fit. But not every story actually fits with it, so I think that's the mystery of the creative process. So, in answer to your question, I'm really sure that I know.

I think the advice is: you have to be a reader.

Whether it's film or whether it's literature, you'll find that a lot of the good filmmakers and writers are readers. They're thorough readers, even being good at film. Being good at film visually comes from understanding points of view, looking at points of view. Yes you must watch films, I watch loads of films, but I think that your own angle comes not from: “oh I want it to look like this thing this other person made” although you could study shots and obviously that's important, but it's more understanding: “Well, what does this experience that I'm trying to, what should the experience look like, what should the experience feel like?”

I think reading and contemplating cannot be over emphasized. But they're very, very hard and if you don't know an idea and you don't have a sense of a meaning, it probably won't work. It doesn't mean it won't be successful. There are plenty of things that are successful that don't necessarily work as well.

That's the key thing I think - just really being someone who reads and contemplates and also, don't let yourself off the hook for things. Don't just go: “Oh, it's okay for it to be like that.” Really question: “well, why is it like that? Why what if I make that choice? What is that choice about?” So, being very, very precise, but at the same time being really open and flexible.

It's a balance between being well informed by having read a lot, having understood a lot about literature, their tradition, and then being free enough to free yourself from that and do something different. It's that too.