I am writing a novel.

I know I always say that but really this time I am, or rather the various tangents that I have been exploring in abortive novel attempts are starting to cohere. Irresistibly. Past a certain tipping point it has a momentum, a direction all its own that you are in thrall to.

Now, it seems impossible for me to write something without a desire to smash and destroy, lets say negate or nihilate everyone else who has ever written anything.

I look at the work of others and  all I can think is, " you pathetic worms, I shall crush you!"

My personal life is all sweetness and life compared to the last time I wrote anything, yet, and surely I can't be the only one who feels (though strangely I don't when it's non-fiction) an immediate and intense rivalry with all other writers the moment I start. Existentially threatened, like.

That will be the symptom of some kind of unresolved conflict at the level of the imaginary, innit?

Oh hang on, that is writing!