I've had a revelation.
Namely,
I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to this writing lark.
This comes as no surprise.
I've spent years making excuses for myself, writing very little, then wasting energy being jealous of other writers' successes. Well I suppose it was one way to occupy my mind.
I accidentally broke the cycle when I submitted afterspace to Tale of the Decongested in June and ended up reading it at Foyles. I met a few other authors, some at a similar stage to me (ie. published but not exactly paying their bills from it), some further along, and found myself feeling terrified at the thought of there being so many talented writers out there (I always suspected their existence) but also quite reassured that I wasn't entirely alone.
Well it only took me fourteen years to open my eyes to Literary London.
After Decongested I swapped a couple of emails with Vanessa Gebbie (lovely lady, described my writing as "vibrant and exciting", which left me feeling a bit flattered) and joined her "literary writers' forum", Fiction Workhouse. I'm still finding my feet there but it's an incredibly supportive group with some very talented authors (yes, the sort for whom I'm trying not to harbour feelings of jealousy!).
This could be seen as evidence that I'm finally getting off my arse.
I have a couple of pieces in submission queues at the moment, another short being considered for the September Tales of the Decongested, as well as three (hopefully four by the end of the weekend) stories posted in competitions (a couple of Fish things and in the Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition, organised by these people).
And more.
I was surprised last Saturday to have a poem accepted for publication at Ink Sweat & Tears. It started life as a hundred word piece of prose but somehow it wasn't working, so I rejigged it and somehow it worked better as a verse. IS&T is a blog-based literary site and has quite an impressive collection of verse and prose. I'll be in some good company - several members of Fiction Workhouse, Vanessa Gebbie, Tania Hershman, to name a few.
For the first time in fuck-knows-how-long I feel like I'm actually doing stuff; and instead of feeling jealous of more successful authors I think I might be starting to learn from them.