I was elated on Tuesday when Commences was finally published. By Thursday I was dragging around in a state of Total Failure and lay in the dark fighting myself and the demons reminding me how little I've managed to achieve. I can't stand myself when I'm miserable and since a good night's sleep is generally quite cheering (new dawn, new day, more energy to start again), escaping into dreamland becomes vital. So it's ironic that it's the one time I can't escape. Smothering oneself with a pillow doesn't work either.
Perhaps the elation had worn off. Perhaps it was a downer after a ferocious cup of coffee in the morning. Or perhaps the demons just like to pounce when one is feeling happier. Fortunately Friday dawn bright and cold and sunny, the first clear morning in weeks. The grey murk that has hung immobile and rainless over London for the last two months has become very trying. The demons retreated and I fixed up Commences' cover and republished (oh, the joy of electronic publishing - no one notices how many times you upload yet another corrected edition.)
But the demons haven't gone away. They tell me I have no talent, that I should have given up years ago, that the world is full of younger, brighter, clearer-headed writers who understand this world and write about it with amazing confidence and win prizes in their twenties. And then the same demons tell me how luckless I am because there are horrendously talentless writers out there who write reams of appalling garbage and yet are unbelievably popular and rich and just as successful as those with talent. So I'm not without talent but neither am I brilliant. That shouldn't make as large a failure as I am.
I have to presume, then, that it has nothing to do with talent. What is it then?
Perhaps the elation had worn off. Perhaps it was a downer after a ferocious cup of coffee in the morning. Or perhaps the demons just like to pounce when one is feeling happier. Fortunately Friday dawn bright and cold and sunny, the first clear morning in weeks. The grey murk that has hung immobile and rainless over London for the last two months has become very trying. The demons retreated and I fixed up Commences' cover and republished (oh, the joy of electronic publishing - no one notices how many times you upload yet another corrected edition.)
But the demons haven't gone away. They tell me I have no talent, that I should have given up years ago, that the world is full of younger, brighter, clearer-headed writers who understand this world and write about it with amazing confidence and win prizes in their twenties. And then the same demons tell me how luckless I am because there are horrendously talentless writers out there who write reams of appalling garbage and yet are unbelievably popular and rich and just as successful as those with talent. So I'm not without talent but neither am I brilliant. That shouldn't make as large a failure as I am.
I have to presume, then, that it has nothing to do with talent. What is it then?
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