I don't know why, but it seems to me that your experience of worrying over there being more "in you" seems to be a writer's malady. When I met a bunch of my agent's clients this summer, we all talked about the fear that there was no next book, that we were incapable of the next book, that the next book would just not come. I don't know how to tell you to trust the process, because every time I think of the work I am contracted to do, I feel the same terrible dread.
The other thing I wanted to say--and something that I feel is the core of what makes writing hard for me--is that the experience of reading is so different from that of writing. You can appreciate what Lois did, you can get swept away by her story, but it is impossible to experience that same immersion in your own work. And so, you never really see your own brilliance, your own skillful touch, and the truths you reveal. You never get to *appreciate* yourself as a writer, you only get to *be* a writer.
On a totally different tack, if you are (in some sense) Solvieg and your own work has grown stale (writing? your office work?), but this one Ice Palace (the book itself?) represents the great project, then perhaps the tragedy of it is that Solvieg feels it will never be good enough, never be majestic enough, never be finished, and that she no longer has what she needs inside of her to create it. Perhaps it represents ever elusive perfection? The thing that will make her feel as though she isn't empty? I hesitate to post this, as it seems so forward of me, but I wonder if it might be important, or at least interesting to look at it that way. I wonder if you could find what you need in the terrible things you are feeling.
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The other thing I wanted to say--and something that I feel is the core of what makes writing hard for me--is that the experience of reading is so different from that of writing. You can appreciate what Lois did, you can get swept away by her story, but it is impossible to experience that same immersion in your own work. And so, you never really see your own brilliance, your own skillful touch, and the truths you reveal. You never get to *appreciate* yourself as a writer, you only get to *be* a writer.
On a totally different tack, if you are (in some sense) Solvieg and your own work has grown stale (writing? your office work?), but this one Ice Palace (the book itself?) represents the great project, then perhaps the tragedy of it is that Solvieg feels it will never be good enough, never be majestic enough, never be finished, and that she no longer has what she needs inside of her to create it. Perhaps it represents ever elusive perfection? The thing that will make her feel as though she isn't empty? I hesitate to post this, as it seems so forward of me, but I wonder if it might be important, or at least interesting to look at it that way. I wonder if you could find what you need in the terrible things you are feeling.