Define...

...self-indulgent.

In On Writing, Stephen King writes, "I am not being paid to be self-indulgent." Or something to that effect; I don't have the book in front of me because, you guessed it, it had to go back to the library.

Can someone please tell me what self-indulgent means in terms of writing? Is it becoming so enamored of your own words that you blather on and on at the expense of your plot and characters? I'd love to know your thoughts on this one.

I keep returning to my previous post about the dark side of imagination, and I wonder if that's also self-indulgent, or just self-pitying, or more evidence of smug superiority twisted into a turd of sentimental overblown sap? I think it might have been all three. But instead of taking it down, I think I'll leave it there. After all, it's a blog, and we all have bad days. At least I hope it's not just me. I encourage you both to put up shitty posts occasionally. That way I won't feel quite so alone.

Kiki, I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of having anything to be grateful for when others do not, although some might suggest that if you're even alive you have something to be grateful for. (I might beg to differ under certain circumstances but that's beside the point.) I have nowhere to go with this discomfort. Well, rather, I do, but some things need to stay in my private journal, so that when they come out into the world, they can do so through someone else's mouth - that way they can't be traced back to me. It's one of the many reasons I prefer to write fiction - plausable deniability.

It was slow going tonight. I thought to begin with that I would end up with two paragraphs after the required hour. I managed maybe a page. Excruciating. So I will comfort myself - and perhaps your own lovely selves - with another quote from the Man:

Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

And on that note, good night ladies. Hope to chat with you tomorrow, provided I haven't bashed in the screen of this laptop with the nearest empty wine bottle.