Finuala Dowling blogs about God, stuttering, aptitude tests and the paradox of writer’s block.

I can’t remember the exact wording of the career aptitude test I took in the last year of junior school, but I have never forgotten my elation when I saw option c). Write poems all day – here was an official aptitude test placing “poet” alongside the respectable vocations of receptionist, accountant and mechanic! I no longer doubted my future. Someone would pay me to write poems all day; somewhere, somehow, it would be possible to acquire the qualifications necessary for this splendid job.