Why writers can't win
I have finished the first draft of Winter Cities, the second of the four book series I'm contracted for. I wrote the last word Wednesday night late in the evening, and I went to bed feeling relieved and a little high. That, in case you're wondering, was the pleasant moment.

I woke up convinced that the book was crap. Now, nothing changed from the night to the morning. I hadn't re-read it. I hadn't meditated deeply on the plot and found some error. There was *no* additional input. Which is to say the depression is totally irrational.

There are writers -- well, and artists of all sorts, I imagine -- who aren't aware that this is normal. The big push isn't followed by exultation or pride or even that sense of deep satisfaction. It's followed by the unshakable conviction that this, at last, is the work that will prove that you're not actually all that much. Whatever you did before this was actually he high water mark of your ability, and it's all downhill from here. And sure, the feeling will pass after a while, and I'll get back to sane & stable. Until I finish something else, and *it* will suck.

This isn't pathology, folks, it's the process. The woman who has won the most awards in the field, Connie Willis, suffers the same thing. It doesn't stop with assurances or prizes or money or people showering you with adulation. It stops with death.

Don't go Riddley Walker's path
Drop John's riding on his back.

Still, I wouldn't have no other.