Fear of Success

Yesterday K and C and I were practising our coaching skills upon one another, it was rather extraordinary, C revealed all sorts of anxieties and inadequacies, and some loving and kindly traits, which were more surprising.  K interrogated me, and I began with a problem about money and my lack of motivation on the HH front (sometimes).  When I got to the bottom of it, I realised that one reason I was slightly dragging my feet about work was because I feared that if it was successful I would have no time for writing... hmm.  

So to prevent this happening I had got myself into one of my strange stuck states, where paralysed by the conflicting demands of  what I ought to do, what I ought to prioritise, what Must be done etc. I end up in escapist mode - doing effectively nothing.  I suppose listening to R4 is vaguely something, but I am going to end up like my mother... Only I'm not.  

At the end of a rather futile and difficult day with many interruptions and distractions, I finally managed 1001 words on Conscience and even did a bit of research in the process.   I suppose the trouble with Wikipedia is that all novels by lazy people will be full of the same bits of research.  Fortunately I discovered that the Wigmore (nee Bechstein) Hall was not open in 1915 - it had been impounded as German property!  I have a horror of getting things wrong.   I have no idea whether John McCormack ever sang at the Queen's Hall - is there any way of finding out?  I am sure he did - but maybe not in Autumn 1915 - does this matter?   In the nightmare world of specialists it matters tremendously: one imagines someone writing in consulting their whole collection of old Queen's Hall programmes.  Such information must exist, but probably not on the internet.  There may be a book somewhere about it - but not available on Amazon.  

I have suddenly dropped into the scholarship zone.  Sadly, such is my distance from a decent library I don't even know where to start.   Actually, this is not true, I could go to the U of Kent library (I think).  Perhaps I will do the research after I've finished the book.  That might be best. An unconventional solution - but I know enough to write the book - just stuff it full of asterisks to return to later.

Writing is good, it does distract one from the bad feelings and anxieties, and I feel much better now.