"Talent isn't enough...you have to put the hours in"

This time last year I, rather naively, thought I had "just about finished" writing my first novel.  Various critiques and ruminations later and it became apparent that I hadn't at all...that the process had in fact, to paraphrase the Carpenters, "only just begun".

It's hard for me to talk about writing, even to people who know I do it and who are actually interested in what it consists of.  In fact, it's especially hard to talk about it with those people.  I have a knack of making it all sound so inconsequential; so throwaway and nothingy.  In fact I'm so inarticulate on the actual subject of writing that I'm sure people must leave a conversation with me in absolute bafflement at it being something I bother with in the first place.

I have a curious habit of wanting to keep my writing all to myself.  Why?  Probably because if it all turns out to be rubbish, I won't have to justify myself.  I realise in saying that I've created the question as to why I keep a blog, but to be honest I never imagine anybody actually reading it.  There are links to it on a few profile pages here and there, but I've never put myself out to recommend or champion it.  Why would I, since it's mostly a collection of disjointed rants and evocations that really only mean something to me?  There's just something quite delicious, to my mind, about articulating something meaningless and/or stupid (whichever you prefer), then clicking 'Publish' and having no control over whatever computers or assorted hand-held devices your pointless musings end up displaying themselves on.

So anyway, I'm currently writing a revised draft of my aforementioned first novel, which is (she says, rather pretentiously) one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  For some reason, the stakes, imaginary though they are, seem a lot higher this time round.  Plus, pathetic as this absolutely is to admit, I'm a bit scared of the intensity of my characters' emotions.  They feel more and more like real, living-and-breathing people I'm in danger of losing control over if I'm not careful.  Plus it's bloody exhausting, constantly living out other people's dramas in your own head; I've actually caught myself on occasion taking a few seconds to determine whether it was me or one of my characters who slept with her boss or caved her neighbour's head in with a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber (I'm joking about the scenarios but not the sentiment!)  It's all completely insane when I think about it, especially when I add the fact that nobody actually wants me to do this.  There are no crippling deadlines, or cheques in the post, or over-indignant comments from readers on Amazon.  

But I shall keep on plugging away, taking a tip from Jerry Seinfeld who apparently ticked off each day in his calendar on which he got some writing done...focusing on just putting the time in.  Hopefully if I put in enough time, somehow and somewhere, greatness will follow.

(in the meantime I've just read this back and have come to the conclusion that sounding like a deranged nutter is probably the main reason I don't talk about my own writing much!)