A brief crisis of confidence
It being bank holiday here in the UK, I’ve not worked Saturday to Monday. Yet in amongst doing DIY and indulging in excellent activities like going to the Globe Theatre and to Marble Hill for an open air concert (music average, picnic great), I suffered an Ascendants crisis.
I woke up in the proverbial cold sweat with my head doing 140 in the outside lane. The trouble being that all the work I’d done to date added up to nothing. There’s that moment when a pit opens up and panic nibbles at your ankles. Of course, the waking despair, if I can call it that, isn’t as awful as all that. When the mind clicks into gear and starts to analyse, it all revolves around timing aspects… There’s a battle that I’ve set far too late and need to move… there’s a central character who is in the wrong place… there’s a betrayal that can’t wait. It needs fixing or hte book will fail for pace and I can’t have that.
Relief is a lovely emotion and once I’d worked through the problem, I enjoyed it very much. But it goes to show that even when you think you’re in control, your mind is still churning away in the background, looking for flaws in your work. It’s a double-edged sword. It can’t be turned off and thank heaven for that or I’d run out of ideas. But it also means some very uncomfortable moments when you feel very alone and very low…
