Russell Brand will no longer be appearing at this year's Cheltenham Literary Festival. According to a statement sent out by the festival's press office, Brand's spokesperson explained that "writing his memoirs is taking longer than expected so Russell is going to be locked away with his manuscript for a couple of weeks." He'll probably be allowed fags and booze, and the food should be good; after all, he is "out of the country". I guess the purpose is to keep him away from those distractions he tells us he likes.

I don't know anything about Brand's writing habits, or even much about his writing. I occasionally read and always enjoy his column on football in the Guardian. I'm not convinced it's actually written, however. It sounds either like it's being shouted across a bar to someone not particularly interested in football or whispered across a urinal to someone who is extremely so.

If I imagine Brand writing at all, he's using a quill. Perhaps that's why he needs to be locked away - it just takes so much longer with a feather.

I hope he enjoys his enforced writing time, because I'm envious. I don't have the same distractions as Brand, at least not anymore. Arguably my distractions are more pressing - not really distractions at all, in fact. Like so many writers, I have a family, a day job, responsibilities, deadlines. Time to write is tight. Yet I'd like to deliver my third novel by Christmas. There's probably only a month of full-time writing needed. But where is that month to be found?

I have often thought about prison as a solution; wondered on the victimless crime that might place me there. Is there a prison with the right sort of ambience and inmates to allow me to get on with my work? There are those beautiful little cells in the San Marco, Florence; but the tourists traipsing through would be a nightmare.

Perhaps a broken leg? Unable to move, I picture myself with laptop on stomach, everything to hand, required only to write and rest. Is this the ideal solution?

Then there's the terrible scenario of a downturn in my business, forcing me to take advantage of the freed-up time to write, yet finding myself unable to do so because of worry.

Of course, the best version is a sudden run on my first two novels, meaning that my third becomes so eagerly awaited that my publishers usher me out of the country and lock me away to finish the thing. But until that happens, the only enforced writing I'm going to do - and it is only the writing demon who is the enforcer here - is one hour before the children are up and an hour after they've gone to bed. Between times I will dream of prison, broken limbs, business failure.

I'm sure Russell Brand isn't the first person with a writing commitment to be taken in hand this way and I'm sure I'm not the only one dreaming of enforced writing time. Have any of you been in the same position?