Somewhat related to the previous post I suppose…
A Guardian article, which has received some significant linkage, asks the question: Is writing for a living a joy or a chore?
Here’s what Mr. John Banville had to say:
“Whether we are writing a novel or a letter to our bank manager, we have the eerie sensation that we are not so much writing as being written, that language in its insidious way is using us as a medium of expression and not vice versa. The struggle of writing is fraught with a specialised form of anguish, the anguish of knowing one will never get it right, that one will always fail, and that all one can hope to do is ‘fail better’, as Beckett recommends.”
The “never get it right” part: Yeah, that hurts.
And Beckett, too. Yeah, Beckett.
The other day my almost four-year-old son pulled a copy of Endgame from the bookshelf and pretended to read it. Or maybe he did read it, who knows.