New album before the end of March 20XXX!

For 4 or 5 years I used to write an article for a football programme (a booklet sold at actual matches). The central figure was a caricature of myself, his thoughts, ramblings & the absurd situations he would get himself into, all with a football theme.

Initially I was allowed one page, but if the 'storyline' so required then I used up to 8 pages.

Usually I had 2 weeks between matches but there were times when there were 3 games in 8 days.

I always had stories in my head. Sometimes I would 'steal' a line from one story & use it in another if it fitted better. Many stories were left at various stages of unfinished. Some were written in an hour when the words just flowed. One, which actually saw the death of my character took 4 years to complete as I couldn't get one sentence right (I finally gained inspiration from remembering my final walk with one of my dogs, & partly from the rain line in 'From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea').

I was fortunate that my editor allowed me to write what I wanted, none of my text was ever changed. In the early days I released a piece that I wasn't happy with to meet the printer's deadline. I hate that story & told the editor that from then on if I had nothing 'finished' to offer him then I wouldn't submit it.

I wrote under a pseudonym so only a couple of people knew the identity of the author, so there was little pressure on me.

In the final season I was contacted my a national magazine who wanted me to write for them. Suddenly there were so many caveats and edits that they were no longer my words. I also received a fee which then took the pleasure away from writing.

I've not written since!

Now I'm not comparing myself with RS (my audience was 2000 people at best), but I can understand why the album is taking so long. When RS talks about some albums he was not happy with the final product, whilst people say certain albums are the definitive Cure. He wants this one to be right.