The surf is high today, but there's little wind. It's leftover movement from yesterday's gales. The sun peaks out, bright and glorious in the hope that winter is almost gone, and then disappears again, hidden behind a range of towering clouds. The rain's stopped, for now, and there seems no end to the dog-walkers on the beach.

The cat sits on pages of my manuscript strewn along the dining room table. He noses an empty bottle of IPA and then sits up and stares. He's happy to be where something's happening, though it's nothing to do with him.

I sip jasmine tea and look at my list of literary agents and their submission requirements. I want more coffee, but I don't want to get too wired. Hence the jasmine. I have two or three draft letters on the go at any given time. I've been here before, but it's not the same.

Twitter and Facebook and chat and email are all switched off. I listen to music without lyrics. I stare out the window and empty my head of all that's not there. There's a line of small birds stood in the silver sheen of wet sand just above the crashing waves. I want them to be sandpipers, but I've no idea what they are. Ornithology's not my thing, though I do know a heron when I see one.

A lone surfer walks up the beach from the water, back to the parking lot. I think I'd rather write letters to literary agents than surf in Scotland in February, and that's saying something.