Apologies to anyone reading this blog which has all the accumulated sludge of a word that rhymes with bog.

Today I hate writing. I hate being as writer. It has ruined my life. I would be anything else, if I could.

I’ve always had little time for writing that puts such frustration on the page without adding some perspective…unprocessed purging that makes no effort to turn shit into gold.

But…yes. Here I am doing just that.

I’ve been wrestling with the idea of what a blog should be. I like the idea that it’s a place to write without the pressures of fiction, that it is much like my journals where I can write without a care to any eye other than mine where syntax and spelling and penmanship simply don’t matter. But I find it hard not to think that this is being written for people other than myself, so that a level of self-consciousness is necessary…even the most natural writer or actor is aware of an audience.

But does this need to be an ongoing narrative or just an assortment of pieces? A novel or a collection of short stories, if you will?

It’s just writing. Aimed at creating more writing. Instead of looking at it as if it was leaking precious resource from a finite container, it is a process that creates a momentum…the more you take from the container the more there is to take.

And it worked. The more blogs I wrote the more fiction I worked on. To the point that I had more pieces submitted for publication than I have in a couple of years.

I always liked to have 4 to 6 pieces out at any one time. It strengthens my skin against the inevitable rejections (which are all part of the game). But more importantly it makes me feel less sensitive to the coldness of the universe.

So, this wee spurt helped me get 5 pieces out to publishers in NZ and around the world, and that made me very happy.

Of course, the problem with hitching your self-esteem to a particular star is that when the star fades, or crashes to earth, then so does your self-esteem.

And so this morning the third of the rejections came, all the way from Ireland.

And I’m grumpier and more despondent than I have a right to be. They don’t have to like the story. I know it’s good. It just has to find the right publisher.

I’m meant to be spending the weekend putting a novel proposal together. I have two ideas which seem worth pursuing but today I only seem capable of finding shit amongst the shit. Where is the gold I lovingly crafted?

I’m starting to think that I should write only for myself. That if I am to be deluded as to the worth of my craft then best to stay self-deluded and keep it all to myself.

I need to write. I must write.

No one needs to read it.

Time to go out into the wild weather and escape the stultifying requirements of ego.