in my heart of hearts I knew that I was neither a writer nor an artist, I knew I didn’t have what it takes. That I kept on trying anyway at times filled me with burning shame and despair, because it was so obviously a lie I told myself to maintain my sense of self. I knew I couldn’t write, but I pretended to myself that I didn’t know it—it was the same mechanism that once, when I was maybe twelve, had made me write down a poem by an English author in my diary and then pretend that I had written it. To myself, in my own diary!
