Hello. I appear to be in the middle of an extended mid-life crisis (I know I’m not 50 yet, but I’m close, and I think cancer accelerated my schedule a bit there), so if you see me at FogCon or ICFA or just around the neighborhood or school and I burst into tears when you ask me how the writing’s going, please accept my apologies — it’s not you, it’s me, all me, and my apparent utter inability to finish writing a decent novel. Or memoir. Or any other book-length work. (I have started several promising works. I am an excellent starter, which turns out to be a useless skill.)
In twenty-five years of being a writer, I never really understood the tortured artist thing until now. When you start to really wonder whether your skills will ever be sufficient to achieve the thing in your head. I’ve actually been on the verge of tears for days (why now? I don’t even know), and my stomach is a churning pit. Actually there was a big spate of this in November / December too. It comes in waves, this last year. It is ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m even talking about it, it’s feels so stupidly self-indulgent, but pretending everything is fine also feels misleading and a disservice to other writers.
Sometimes you really wonder if you made the right career choice, except if I call up my dad now and tell him maybe I should have tried to become a doctor after all, he will just laugh at me, I suspect. I have very thoroughly made my own bed here, so I suppose I’d better just lie in it.