It's still Christmas - Day 10, and we are enjoying it on the whole, but I have begun to feel depressed. When I began the Christmas "holiday" I was reluctant - I was taking my novels by the throat and shaking them up and looking forward to getting on with them. The appalling financial situation we are in (£1200 to last until the end of February!) is a very marked source of depression. (OK, there'll be some little bits to add in, but it's not enough to pay the mortgage or the tax bill). And of course, there is no clear indication what piece of work will come in next - so we'll find ourselves with 2 month's money - but no real indication of when the next bit will arrive. It's always been difficult, ever since we started the business - but in the past we had the cushion of credit cards behind us - and we had savings too. We have neither now - I do save a little every month - but every two or three months we are called upon to use that money.
I have sworn not to borrow any more money from Ned's account. There is a big part of me which knows something will turn up - something always does and God's never failed us yet - but if my faith is being tested, then I'm continually failing. Actually, a lot of the time I am optimistic and not too worried, but the last two or three years have really tested my resilience, and the thought of another year like this gaping ahead of us with more fiscal voids and uncertainties is something I can barely believe is happening. But we are living in the "new normal" - there is less work around. Surely, I think, surely the government will do something to encourage housebuilding as a way of stimulating growth - which will help that side of the business. But "stimulating growth" is an alien concept to this government.
And now, the weather...
Fiscally, when things are bad, we can barely afford to leave Ramsgate (an occasional trip to Margate for art and Pegwell Bay for nature can be allowed), and being trapped in Ramsgate is no good at all. I need to remember that I live in a house full of books and music - five minutes' walk from a library, three minutes' walk from a really good art gallery (since November) and that stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage - I still have intellectual freedom, but there is something a bit like adolescence now - stuck in the house, with people who are fond of me but also rather angry with me. Ned was so negative about the food last night that I began to cry and he said "Don't give me that!" or something similar. I quite like lentils etc., and we are going to be eating a lot of them - so it isn't a great problem for me, but having to struggle to sell this idea to Ned is just the bitter end. I think it is unfair of him to be beastly like that. I so seldom cry. I am spending all my time controlling my sorrows, repressing them - and actually, I don't usually write them in my blog - I have another place for this. But I am quite angry really, and the depressive feeling is because I can't do much about it. But quite frankly, would being able to afford to go to London or Oxford or somewhere more agreeable for a day make much difference?
I think this year I do not feel 2013 is a "New Year" - it is simply the continuation of 2012 by other means, and 2012 started absolutely brilliantly - it was so exciting - and then it tailed down into disappointment. Then again, I finished another novel - something I had longed to do - and I am really in a better situation than I was this time last year. It just doesn't feel that way. I don't think 2013 can get worse, if only because I will be more inured to the misery of the unpublished novelist's life. But as M says - I am in the top 0.1% of unpublished novelists - I have two novels, I have had one of them taken seriously by a good agent, it is getting around. It will happen in the end.
I have sworn not to borrow any more money from Ned's account. There is a big part of me which knows something will turn up - something always does and God's never failed us yet - but if my faith is being tested, then I'm continually failing. Actually, a lot of the time I am optimistic and not too worried, but the last two or three years have really tested my resilience, and the thought of another year like this gaping ahead of us with more fiscal voids and uncertainties is something I can barely believe is happening. But we are living in the "new normal" - there is less work around. Surely, I think, surely the government will do something to encourage housebuilding as a way of stimulating growth - which will help that side of the business. But "stimulating growth" is an alien concept to this government.
And now, the weather...
Fiscally, when things are bad, we can barely afford to leave Ramsgate (an occasional trip to Margate for art and Pegwell Bay for nature can be allowed), and being trapped in Ramsgate is no good at all. I need to remember that I live in a house full of books and music - five minutes' walk from a library, three minutes' walk from a really good art gallery (since November) and that stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage - I still have intellectual freedom, but there is something a bit like adolescence now - stuck in the house, with people who are fond of me but also rather angry with me. Ned was so negative about the food last night that I began to cry and he said "Don't give me that!" or something similar. I quite like lentils etc., and we are going to be eating a lot of them - so it isn't a great problem for me, but having to struggle to sell this idea to Ned is just the bitter end. I think it is unfair of him to be beastly like that. I so seldom cry. I am spending all my time controlling my sorrows, repressing them - and actually, I don't usually write them in my blog - I have another place for this. But I am quite angry really, and the depressive feeling is because I can't do much about it. But quite frankly, would being able to afford to go to London or Oxford or somewhere more agreeable for a day make much difference?
I think this year I do not feel 2013 is a "New Year" - it is simply the continuation of 2012 by other means, and 2012 started absolutely brilliantly - it was so exciting - and then it tailed down into disappointment. Then again, I finished another novel - something I had longed to do - and I am really in a better situation than I was this time last year. It just doesn't feel that way. I don't think 2013 can get worse, if only because I will be more inured to the misery of the unpublished novelist's life. But as M says - I am in the top 0.1% of unpublished novelists - I have two novels, I have had one of them taken seriously by a good agent, it is getting around. It will happen in the end.
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