I am Salieri.

I'm several chapters into book #3, and my confidence and resolve flag with distressing regularity. Is it the right project? Does it stink as much as everything leading up to it? Unanswerable questions. There's a faction that has suggested I stick to essays, but I don't have an essay project clinging tenaciously to my brain the way the story does. All signs, all portents, all the cosmic nods which I've so annoyingly requested have pointed to this ridiculous effort to channel Roald Dahl. Or something like that.

So I'm at it. Because to not be at it guarantees that my comfort with life will tank. Weird process. It's so easy to be distracted. Often, I would vastly rather squeak out a few tunes on the fiddle. And I wouldn't rather clean the bathroom, or see to it that there's food in the house, but those are necessities and hard to ignore.

Here are two categories of people whom I envy.
Category #1: J.K. Rowling
Category #2: Anyone who is engaged in a pursuit which keeps them calm and satisfied.

The thing is, I have never had an avocation for which I have received so many...as I've said--cosmic nods...as this book thing. I have also never wanted a job in the way that I want the writer job. Never ever. And I've wanted to want something. This is the only thing that's ever been right.

So I do feel--and this is kind of stupid, but I'm serious--I do feel that to continue charging at the gates of publishing success is one of my purposes for now. However, this conviction does not keep me from railing at the Cosmos for assigning me a task for which I feel completely inadequate. I mean, cripes, if I must feel compelled to write, at least send me a gifted muse. Instead, I got Clarence the crappy muse, and it's up to me to try to earn him his wings since he clearly is a muse in name only.