That neurotic beast, the writer (aka starting a new book project)

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:38:51 GMT  <== Philosophy ==> 

Claire Wolfe - a glimpse into the soul of a writer as the muse appears for a new work. [claire]

Every time I start a new project I understand all over again why Hemingway and Fitzgerald drank and why all those famous intellectual women authors ended up with their heads in gas ovens or their whole selves plodding dramatically into rivers with rocks in their pockets.

I'm not putting myself in their league, mind you. Not creatively. But I can match them for writerly angst, dithering, frustration, self-loathing, and absolutely cosmic levels of self-pity. I swear, if it weren't for partnerships and deadlines, I'd never get a useful word down on paper. I can't imagine the courage and fortitude of a writer who comes home from a full-time job and spends three hours in the middle of every night for 10 years working on a novel he doesn't know if any one will ever buy.

Such people must be stronger than Schwarzenegger in his prime.

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