I knew it had to happen, but I figured I’d be reading Hemingway or Shakespeare, Steinbeck or Joyce when it did.

I’m talking about the hit-upside-the-head feeling of being a talentless drudge.  I recognized it right away, because I’ve had it more often than I care to admit as a musician, listening to other guitarists play spectacular stuff that I couldn’t touch.  Makes you want to go home and trash your axe.

So here I am, deep in the middle of the story arc of my second novel, Skins and Bone.  The Cape Cod Writers Conference has come and gone.  Lots of pearls, lots of help. Yes, they tell me, not all writing can be lyrical.  Really, you just have to plug along.  Write every day.  Pretty soon you’ll have something you can revise.  Then I pick up Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn.  Here are a couple of bits.

“He has a great smile, a cat’s smile. He should cough out yellow Tweety Bird feathers, the way he smiles at me.”