Evil spirits

I've been pretty good about keeping my spirits up over the past six months, but this weekend just past has tested my mettle. For one thing, my laptop shit itself. Won't even boot up. Apparently one of the necessary Windows files is corrupted. Thank heaven and earth I've been assidious about backing my stuff up - in the end I only lost a morning's editing work on Loaded. So it could be worse, but I feel like the creative centre of my life has passed on. I'll have to take it to the local computer shop and see what they can do about solving it. If I have to replace it, I think I'll go down the Mac road this time.

Now, as if that wasn't dispiriting enough in itself, I got yet another rejection for 'Other Intelligent Life', from The Town Drunk. They made vague references to flaws in character and plot and then informed me my writing "showed promise". Maybe I would have got a kick out of that 18 months ago, but these days I just don't give a crap about such faint praise.

Those two blows, piled on top of life's other petty frustrations (illness, vet bills, car repairs etc), have left me wondering whether striving for full-time authorship is a fool's pursuit. The longer I slave away at it, the more it seems like a damned lottery. One where you slog your guts out for hours a day instead of just buying a ticket.

Well, that's my self-pitying rant. I thought it might make me feel better, but now I just hate myself for being such a whiner. Anyway, in a fit of aggressive affirmative action, I gave 'Other Intelligent Life' to a fledgling market called Yog's Notebook. If they don't take it ... I suppose I'll put it aside and come back to it another day.

The Whinging Writer