sometimes you are gripped with imposter syndrome and the feeling you are wasting your time in the futile gesture of putting words to a page in the hope that someday you will be happy with it that it was all worthwhile the evenings of doubt frustration regret hope the unending feeling that you are so close that it is just over there that knots your stomach at night as you try to sleep but your mind won’t rest as it is full of nagging questions about the viability of the project you are working on whether it was all just a foolhardy endeavour in the first place that you rushed in not heeding the warnings that you were overreaching you should try something simpler a haiku maybe no a single sentence start there but you foolish you decided to rush straight in and try and write a novel again with characters not fully formed just going through the paces in unformed scenes like shadows in an early 80’s video game with all line drawings and the only colour is green and you don’;t even like that so you are left with the realisation that your story is missing a big something a great big something and you are a failure you’ve let yourself down and the people you told you were writing a novel and ask how the progress is going but they have now learnt not to ask anymore as the answer is always the same it’s coming along slowly so you are lying there fretting about the blank page in your book that needs words and exhausted your eyes droop then close but just before they close the idea the solution pops in and you write it down on the page by your bed satisfied that the solution has been found you can rest easy now so you sleep happy only to wake the next day and look at that paper and wonder what the fuck that word means and you are right back where you were the day before with mr imposter syndrome.

anyway. it is sometimes good to remind ourselves why we got into this writing malarkey anyway. the best way i find for me is to pick up a book by a writer i like and read their words and be transported and enjoy the sensation of being carried somewhere and then i remember it is making others feel this way through my work is why i do it. the smiles on faces. the appreciative words. the collective joy. that’s why i do it.