I am getting quite close to the end of a longer piece of writing. Two things have just occured to me, while I was cleaning my teeth as it happens. Firstly I never want to repeat myself ( in terms of style, form, content) and secondly I tend to view the process of writing about something as an opportunity to learn about it. Writing for me is pretty much those things you are repeatedly told it shouldnt be, self-improvement and therapy.

I want to go where I haven't been before. I love his stuff but I cant imagine being Banville, for example, or Richard Ford and having to go on being Banvillian and Fordian year after year.

So essentially where I sense a lack in myself I write. Where It was I shall be and all that. I am always on personal terra semi-cognito.This leads to a fairly pervasive sense of insecurity and self doubt, my impulse once I have finished something has always been to think (as it still is now I realised as I chased down the vague dread that just got hold of me in the bathroom), ok, well, that was interesting, now I will throw it away. After all, other people are experts in these fields, this is their thing and I am an amateur. Now I supose everyone feels this way on some level, a sense of shame about proffering such meagre gifts the anxiety that exactly those experts will be looking on. No doubt the professional has learned to push it to one side.

Let me just put this back in the drawer, leave it in the file. Another experiment, another attempt and we will get there but not this one, not just yet. Next time, next time.