x-ray vision

[devi]

I had The Fear last night. By which I mean that I found myself lying there in the dark, staring crazily at the ceiling and viciously scratching my head till it bled, my brain spinning down and down into ever greater depths of angst. Why last night, I don't know. Yesterday was great in many ways: end of term, won argument with shop assistant over Matt's shoes, Thai food, Garden State (which I loved). But suddenly, click, off went the light and on came the usual parade of thoughts of inadequacy and restlessness and self-doubt. When I got to the old reliable "maybe this is all there is, I should stop trying to write books and resign myself to being a two-bit teacher and nothing else, I have no imagination and my only skill is regurgitating simple facts", I knew there was nothing else for it but to get up and medicate myself with hot fruit tea and the internet.

On which I found a message from Andy Cox at Interzone, replying to a prod I gave him last week, saying yes, they are still supporting the James White Award and are definitely going to publish my story. Which is some encouragement. But he didn't say when.

I wrote an epic whinge, then thought better of it at the last minute (sometime around 3.30 am) and didn't post it. Thank goodness, now that I read it again. Instead, a weird moment from yesterday:

Two men were sitting in Coffee Republic, both in shiny bomber jackets with buzz-cuts. They didn't particularly look like doctors, in fact they looked more like builders or rugby players - but they were holding an X-ray of someone's pelvis up to the light, pointing at parts of it, and collapsing into giggles.

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh, it certainly is. But The Fear says that I'm not even a proper teacher - I've only ever taught very small classes, and was shocked at how hard it was to control that class on Tuesday that was twice its usual size, and I know that for Proper Teaching, crowd control is essential. So what The Fear is really saying is that maybe I'm not actually good at anything...

I really want to lighten that with a smiley, but I just told atommickbrane that I was giving them up.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Well, my heartfelt bluedevi Admiration Society says that The Fear is talking shit. Though if you were naturally good at crowd control, that would make you naturally terrifying. I think it's something one acquires along the way... at least, I hope so.

[modalverben.livejournal.com]

If it helps in the slightest I consider you to be wonderful.