So so so so so ...
It's been about a year and a month since I quit doing paid work and made my writing my job. I suppose that merits a belated annual report.
It's a novel, and I love it and hate it on alternate days. Sometimes in alternate hours. I have never tunneled as deeply into myself or opened my eyes as fully as I have while writing it. I've never worked so hard to make my writing communicate. It's glorious and terrifying. I cry a lot. I mean, a lot for me.
Part of what's terrifying is the feeling that I'm picking myself over like a vulture, and that when this story is finished I'll never be able to pull another new thought out of the husk that's left.
The other part is the knowledge that all this burrowing, all this weeping tearing out of hair, public brooding writerly mess that I do -- if when it's all over I fail, all of that will become ... what? Pretension? Drama? Fraud?
I'm not even sure what failure would look like. I hope it will be hard for me to fail, since I'm not writing to please any given audience, and since I don't even expect to publish it. When it is readable, which is bound to happen eventually, I'm fairly certain it isn't going to gain me a fan club. But if I can look back on it and call it honest, I think I'll be satisfied with that.
