I'm at that point in my novel redraft where I'm convinced the whole thing is shit, and the only way to fix it is with cleansing fire.

This is inevitable. I always feel like this about my work.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead describes how the jackal-headed god Anubis weighs the heart of the deceased to find out if they are worthy of entering the afterlife.

When people say writing is hard, they don't mean it's hard like carrying bricks all day, or working in a sweatshop. They mean it's hard like having your heart weighed to find out if you are worthy.

Writers write because we think writing is important. And by extension, the quality of our writing directly determines the quality of ourselves as human beings.

Sure, we get that it's not what you do that makes you special, it's who you are, who you love, how well you live your life, blah blah blah.

But in our heart of secret hearts we know the truth: the thing that makes our lives meaningful is our ability to write. And every word on the page is another rib peeled back, exposing our hearts for the world to reach in, squeeze, and judge our worthiness.

So there's no pressure or anything.

I wish I could be Zen about this. I wish I could be calm and diligent and serene. But I can't. Every time is the same: wild hope followed by crushing despair and back again.

And this, I suspect, is where true discipline lies. It is not in being a monk, unperturbed by all feeling. It is in feeling the ridiculous highs and the hadopelagic lows, and then continuing to work regardless.

The goal is not to walk through the fire without burning. The goal is to be burnt to ashes, and keep walking.

Okay. Whinge over. Back to it.