Something was nagging at the back of my mind yesterday during my run. Not an unpleasant feeling — more like an itch just out of reach, persistent and quietly insistent. This is not unusual for me. Running has always had a way of unlocking things. Once my body settles into its rhythm and takes over on autopilot, my mind begins to wander into territory it wouldn't otherwise visit. Runners will know this feeling well. I call it zoning out, though I suspect there are better words for it. If you have one, I'd genuinely love to hear it.

Yesterday was different, though. With race day approaching, I've been trying to stay present during my runs — tracking lap times, monitoring my pace, keeping myself honest. My target is six minutes per kilometre, which, at my age, is no small ask. The body has opinions of its own.

But somewhere on that run, I let go. And that's when it arrived — not a thought exactly, more like a recognition. A quiet, clarifying truth.

The scenery where we train is extraordinary. Ranches, vineyards, and wine farms stretch out in every direction. From the crest of the steep hill we climb, two neighbouring towns sit nestled in the mountains, forty minutes away by road. The mist begins to form mid-run, settling over everything like a slow, calm exhale. It is the kind of beauty that asks nothing of you. It simply is.

And standing in the middle of all of it, I realised: running, for me, is exactly like writing.

Both pursuits carry the same quiet burden of expectation. As writers, we pour ourselves into our work — the drafting, the cover design, the blurb, the publishing, the promoting, the refining, the starting again — all of it oriented, consciously or not, toward that elusive summit. The coveted number one. The bestseller. The podium. We picture it clearly: the crowd, the recognition, the arrival. And when it doesn't come — or when it comes and then slips away again — the silence that follows can be crushing.

For anyone who has lived with anxiety, perfectionism, or the particular weight of feeling like you are never quite enough, that silence is familiar territory. I know it well.

"It struck me, standing in the mist, that the most liberating thing I have ever done is stop performing — for publishers, for rankings, for an imaginary audience holding scorecards."

When I wrote Elm Brook Manor, I had no audience. My dog was waiting for his walk. My wife, who has always believed in me more steadily than I have believed in myself, encouraged me to stop hiding and start sharing. So I wrote — not for a market, not for a ranking, but because I loved it. I loved the characters I was building. Readers still mention those characters in their reviews today, which tells me something important: the work that comes from genuine joy tends to find its people.

That is the thing about letting go of the podium. It doesn't mean giving up. It means giving yourself permission to be present — in the writing, in the running, in the life happening around you. On a run, I can stop to photograph the mist settling over the valley. I can pause to tie a shoelace, strike up a conversation with a stranger, or fall back to encourage a newer runner toward the finish line. None of that is failure. All of it is freedom.

There is no pressure in what I do now, and the absence of that pressure has changed everything — not just how I write, but how I feel. Mental health, for many of us in the creative community, is quietly shaped by the stories we tell ourselves about success and worth. We measure ourselves against invisible standards, against other people's highlights, against a version of ourselves that exists only in our most anxious imagination. It is exhausting. And it is, I have come to understand, entirely optional.

My readers are not waiting for a bestseller. They are waiting for the next honest story. And I am free — truly free — to give them exactly that.

To anyone reading this who is carrying that same weight: you are allowed to put it down. The most radical thing a creative person can do, in a world obsessed with metrics and rankings and performance, is simply enjoy what they make.

I am free to write. I am free to run. And I would not trade that freedom for any podium in the world.