How A Wish List Cheered Me UP

It's been a tough old day, lots of looking at my screen wishing that I could produce something new and fresh and exciting. I looked over works in progress that I haven't touched since I started to prepare Heaven Sent for publishing. I looked but I was unable to focus – actually I wanted to destroy what I had written. I guess I still feel quite drained from finishing Heaven Sent, I am certainly reeling a bit from the first stages of marketing the book. It is amazing how you can spend so long writing a piece, arrive at the end, feel that rush of euphoria and pride, forget the torment of creation – but then you start back trying to write, and you find yourself feeling worthless again, wracked with self doubt.

There is this wonderful passage from Solzenitsyn's The First Circle which beautifully expresses how I feel.

"There is a law that governs all artistic creation, of which Kondrashove had long been aware, which he tried to resist but to which time after time he freely submitted. This law said that no previous work of his carried any weight, that it could not be counted to the artist's credit. The focal point of all his past experience was always the canvas on which he was working at the time; for him the work in hand was the ultimate expression of his intellect and skill, the first real test of his gifts. But he was so often disappointed. All of his previous works had disappointed him but each time he forgot the despair, so here he was working on something else, and it was again his first work – only now was he really finding how to paint! And again he was in despair, convinced that it was a failure, that his whole life had been wasted and that he was totally devoid of talent."

And then, just as I was about to turn in, switch off my computer, caste the day aside, try to forget it – I get an email saying did you know your book is on a wish list – Freda's Voice 2011 Wish List to be precise. It might seem fickle but I shall now go to bed happy.