Can’t sleep, words will eat me
I’m at That Point in the book. That Point being the part where I’m constantly terrified that I’m going to Royally Screw It Up. I write in spite of, or perhaps because of, this feeling.
It feels like being on a tightrope without a net. Although I know I have a net: revision. I will eventually revise and revise and revise until I’m walking the tightrope without even a glance at the ground, back straight, firm grasp on that pole-thingy tightrope walkers hold. Is this metaphor working? I’m not sure.
I am also reassured by the fact that other writers feel this way, and published ones, at that. And I’m reassured by this quotation from John Irving, which keeps me going even on my darkest days:
There it is. It’s like a breath of fresh air into my cobweb-filled skull. That, and this Samuel Beckett quotation, which I promised myself I would keep in my head through this entire novel:
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.
That, my friends, is what writing is about. Hell…that’s what life is about.
-Kristin