Not quite egoless yet

I haven't quite completely overcome my ego. I was just reading an interview from the weekend's paper about a British novelist, she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a while ago and was talking about her new novel. The interview included the phrase, "I was born in 1971, so..."

I still had my egoist reaction - she was born in 1971? Eight years after me? And she has two novels out? And I don't even have one? How is that possible? Let's not even talk about the fact that she's eight years younger than me and was short-listed for a Booker Prize.

If I really were going to write a novel, I would be stealing time away from other things and doing it. I would stay up too late in a frenzy of creation, I would not be able to breathe if I didn't write (another interview in the same paper), it would be easy. I should probably come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to ever write a novel. I do really want to write a book, but maybe even that is an artificial bourgeois superimposed expectation on myself and I don't really want to do it inside, just for me.

What do I want to do? Well, I'm home from work sick, with a fever and aches all over and a bad stomach ache. And here I am.

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