Wisdom is a Bitch

I have come to realize that a major problem with my self view is that I never had the delusion that I was going to be a great and famous writer. For most of my life I believed that I couldn't, nor would never be able to, write well. I believed that being a writer was something that you either were or were not.

Now that I understand the process of developing as a writer I see myself coming along nicely, though I can feel what Carlos Casteneda called the fourth enemy, old age, lurking in the shadows waiting to jump me. There is only so much time left to win what morsels of fame might come my way.

Thus I find myself longing for delusion. To be able to believe that the next novel will be the one that wins me that touch of immortality. The one that finds its target audience beyond my immediate friends and family. The Great American Novel of the post baby boom pre generation X literary cannon. Hell, even in delusionment my ambitions are pigeon-holed.

So without fame, why write? Because these stories are like rodents trying to gnaw their way out through my brain. It's write or go insane, and I'm just too anal-retentive to accept insanity.