Writing a novel is a bit like being pregnant.
Not that I’d know what it’s like to be pregnant.
U have this life inside U, that U are carrying with U everywhere U go.
U can’t stop thinking about it. It’s part of U, part of your life. Everything U do is reflected and refracted back into it.
Except giving birth to a creative work is far more solitary. At a certain point, everyone can see that U are pregnant. People smile at U and clear a seat for U and get U an extra cup of water.
With a novel, or any other creative work, it’s far more private. More solitary. No one can look at U and see that U have a novel inside U, or a film script, or an epic poem. And even if they could see, not many people would especially care.
No one besides me cares about my novel.
Not as much as I do, anyway.
No one cares as much as I do about this blog post, or any of its siblings here on this little notes site.
No one cares as much as I do about my music.
Or about my work, and The Service Guild as a whole.
U have to stay close to your motivation, your reason why U care. Your deep knowing that it matters. The intuition that U can’t explain or justify, but U know all the same.
Maybe in time they’ll care. After it’s born. After it’s done.
But maybe not. It might be just another novel to them, another rejected movie script heaped on an ever-growing pile on some producer’s desk.
But not for U. Not for God. Not for the work itself.
Do it because U have to. Do it because your heart and your soul and your integrity need U to. Do it because U want to. Do it because U find it beautiful, pleasing. Do it because it scratches an itch nothing else quite does. Do it for its own sake.
The journey is its own reward, the creative process its own magick. Enjoy.