I am a writer. In Finnish it is hard to find an equivalent for this wonderfully concise term, which covers all the things I do, things that really require separate terms in Finnish. Author, yes, first and foremost, because I try to leave as much time as possible free for that work. I have produced anthologies of poetry, non-fiction, plays, one collection of short stories, and right now I'm working on a novel. I was a full-time journalist once, working with pictures, sounds, and words.

Now my pictures are emphatically scenes, images, visions, revealed and concealed pictures, reactions, descriptions of how and when people see. It’s hard to avoid how fundamental sight and visualisation are to the human perception of the world, especially since moving pictures have claimed much of the prominence the written – and recited or sung – word held before. Those intersections where a word is worth a thousand pictures, not only vice versa, are the most fascinating. Despite everything, I still photograph a lot and have even put on some exhibitions; but I write every day, like a rodent that has to keep its teeth and claws sharp.

Writing is also writing columns; irrespective of the publication forum, I strive for something that used to be called newspaper articles – and reflective radio shows that may be short on physical script but long on premeditated improvisation. The mind will also write on itself, and then the job of the writer is to dig up those texts too, fine-tune and apportion them, set them on the plate as a dainty dish.

The job of a consultant – nearly all authors have more than one string to their bow – is also mostly writing. Your reports won’t be public, but their function and form, with research questions, methodologies, and the creation of new knowledge, isn’t that different from academic research.

Thus, my days turn into weeks, composed of the fast and the slow, the short and the long, the emotional and the factual, everything you can do with words, which is no small thing.