The waiting never stops, and: We Are All In This Together

AL Kennedy is Living Proof that the trauma of being a writer never quite ends. By whichever measure you gauge success, the job of being a writer comes with its very own set of particularly distressing pay and conditions. Even Stephen King - yes, STEPHEN KING - sometimes wistfully thinks about getting a job in a garden centre. In today's Guardian, AL Kennedy is articulate on the matter of waiting during the Christmas holidays, hoping to hear back from her editor over a book which took her three years to write.

"This is only the 13th time that I have footled about, gone for walks, tried to start other things, sketched hollow-sounding plans for the coming months, stared blackly at the ceiling and generally failed to avoid the constant, low-level nausea generated by waiting to hear.... try to imagine one of those insultingly-lengthy TV elimination round pauses which somehow elongates over days or weeks, blends with your driving test outcome, the announcements of every important exam result upon which you have ever relied, every time you've asked someone lovely to have a coffee, or hold your hand, or subject you to intimate forms of relaxation and every naked-on-the-roof-of-Sydney-Opera-House-while-your-parents-and-in-laws-and-primary-school-teachers-render-you-in-watercolours anxiety dream you've ever had. Only it's less pleasant than that."

Published writers are often heard to pipe up that "being published isn't all it's cracked up to be". Here, in the full article, AL Kennedy explains exactly why.. You're still skint all the time. You're still in the waiting game. And you still can't get anybody to return any of your phone calls.

Facebook quote of the week:

"SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF SOCIETY COURTESY OF PRIVATELY EDUCATED MILLIONAIRES, COME ON 2011, LET'S HAVE YA." - Noah Brown.

Noah is making an appearance at Fictions of Every Kind: Cuts on Tuesday March 22nd. Looks like he's getting his teeth into the theme already! Good work, Noah.

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