Kindle Notes & Highlights
Even though I’ve written more than a hundred short stories I always think that I will never come up with another decent one. It’s agony.
Later, at playtime, I found myself in a yard full of yelling, laughing, playful children. I knew no one. I remember thinking, ‘I don’t like this.’ So, I walked out of the gate and went home.
I have been told that the first thing many psychologists ask themselves when they meet a troubled client is, ‘What age is this person stuck at?’ I heard one prominent family therapist suggest that Donald Trump is firmly fixed at age three. Children’s authors often discuss a similar question. And it is this: ‘Do we write for a particular age group that represents a time when we were psychologically damaged ourselves?’
That’s one of the wonderful things about being a writer. If your story has touched just one heart somewhere it has all been worthwhile.
If a child finds a book funny or interesting, that is reason enough for it to exist. They are learning to read and are having a good time. But we are hoping that they will eventually move on to books that also help them to grow into caring, balanced people – in other words, books that are about something.
This ability to tell jokes, debate and perform in front of an audience really masked a feeling of isolation and loneliness. I always felt that I was lacking something that everyone else knew – some secret bond that would never include me.
As I have already said, amusing stories are hard to write. It’s not just a matter of picking a scatological topic and jotting down a few jokes. It’s torture coming up with a great punchline or a surprising twist. I often think that it’s like turning over pebbles on a beach – there are thousands of them and underneath just one pebble is a gem. It’s boring and hard work but you just have to keep turning them over.
I was no longer lonely, in the sense that I now had company, but some sort of inner loneliness continued to bug me. It was almost as if two parts of me were not speaking to each other.
There was a dark side to the extravagant lifestyle but I largely kept my worries about it to myself. My periods of depression were growing worse and worse. I would look at all the happy people in the street and think, They are normal. I am not. I am alone and different.
