And Here I Thought I was the Only One

For the past umptynine blogs I've been bitching about how lonely is the plight of the poor writer who slaves away in darkness and only rarely emerges from his barrow to embrace the company of others, sometimes even those who share his affliction.  I have often pondered if all writers feel this way and commented on the fallacy of thinking their success comes easily.

But that was before I read an article by Gwenda Bond that confirmed my worse suspicions.  My eyes have been opened to see that other writers share my special circle of hell; ever cursed to "scribble, scribble, scribble..." in a state of perpetual concern that we have neither the skills nor talent to write anything worthy and that any success we've achieved was through sheer luck or a mistaken acceptance by an editor.  Perfection always gets in the way of sufficient as we polish our prose endlessly, submitting only when fatigue or deadlines overtake us. We all know, deep in our hearts, that we are impostors and- dare we say it - inadequate.

It matters little how well others might praise or curse our writing. In our tiny writer's minds we know that we were merely lucky, that our best work were largely accidental, and that we are undeserving of whatever praise is being bestowed.  We are all pitiful, sniveling wretches, doomed like Sisyphus to be forever striving, only to discover there's always another boulder, another hill, another damned deadline ahead and each momentary success only leads to more opportunities to fail, fail, fail.

But, by God, despite all that, all the misgivings, self-doubt, and time required, I do love writing.