Blue Sky Thinking...

I watched Hilary Mantel on the Culture Show over the weekend -- riveting and inspiring stuff.  She's been a god to me since I read A Place of Greater Safety, and as for Wolf Hall - well, respect.

She had a great deal to say that I found interesting and helpful, but one of the things which struck me most was her humility. At one point she confessed, "Every day I'm writing I feel like a beginner -- there are no guarantees because you could do it yesterday, you can do it today." If you look beyond the writerly superstition to which every author must be prone, that not-taking-anything-for-granted feeling, you find an extraordinary sense of possibility, both positive and negative.  There is the chance that you will dry up and won't be able to think of anything to write at all, but on the other hand you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that anything could happen.  That is the thrill and the source of the compulsion to keep going.  The blank computer screen (or page) is like the wide blue sky -- who knows what the weather will work upon it?