these things take time

My writing has been trucking along at a decent rate since the New Year. I find it hard to praise my efforts too much, because “could do better” is always at the back of my mind. I’m already up on last year, but being brutally honest 2007 was the first year where I put in a consistent effort to write and submit.

Still, at least I’m improving, and I aim to work harder. There’s an element of training involved: constant, repeated habit is the only way to make progress.

I don’t have the ability to offer excuses for my variable efforts in the past. I know it sprang from a number of issues: insecurity, fear of failure, and a lack of confidence, which sapped my willpower and resulted in a half-assed discipline.

Not that these anxieties have magically disappeared. Since I’m submitting more often they’ve been joined by a buddy called inadequacy. This fellow is a constant companion now.

But, that’s unlikely to change. I can succumb to their whispered insults, or put on my headphones, crank up whatever music inspires me, and write.

Speaking of music, our MP3 library continues to grow as we re-rip all our CDs. It’s nice to be able to have the music server on random again and for it to throw up a cool, and often bizarre, selection of tracks. Today, the one that stuck in my head was “To Me You are a Work of Art” by Morrisey, from Ringleader of the Tormentors:

I see the world
It makes me puke
But then I look at you and know
That somewhere there’s a someone who can soothe me

To me you are a work of art
And I would give you my heart
That’s if I had one, had one

Why I like this song, and a lot of the Smiths back catalogue, is that it summarises the strange paradoxical nature of the world.

You never quite drown in the current of melancholy in the music because there’s a thin thread of hope that glitters in the music. It’s just enough to hold onto and pull yourself out of the well.