‘Is that really what you think?’

‘Yes. We’re treading water and I don’t have time for this any more, Adam. I’m thirty next week. I have a biological clock to reckon with. I’m telling you it’s up to the next level or get out.’ I hadn’t meant to say as much.

‘You can’t threaten me. You can’t put an ultimatum on a relationship,’ he yells back at me.

‘I can do as I bloody well like, and I’m telling you, Adam, if there’s no big shiny rock presented to me on my birthday then it’s the last birthday we’ll be celebrating together. Marry me or move out.’

The last words spurt into our lives with the devastation of a tsunami. I pant with fury and frustration. I regret the words but believe in them at the same time. It’s complicated. Besides, it hardly matters what I did or did not mean to say. The fact is I’ve just issued my boyfriend with an ultimatum. An ultimatum with a very short deadline and a dire ‘failure to comply’ clause.

I hastily pick up the plates and manically start to tidy up the kitchen. I toss rice and congealed leftovers into

He is truly petrified.

3. Scott

Some people think it might just happen. Fame and that. That you’ll just stumble on it. Or that someone will hand it over, that’s the Simon Cowell effect, that is. But I always knew finding fame took more than that. It needed plans, schemes and determination. It needed energy. When I’m pissed I don’t have much energy and I forget plans. So I had to stop getting pissed. Because to lose it all now, well, it would be a damn shame. It would.

The other thing people don’t realize is that it’s a violent toil making art. It’s far too easy to lose your nerve. People who aren’t good enough rarely realize it. Others who are good enough don’t believe it. You have to believe in everything. In luck, in your fans, but mostly in yourself.