i resent the implication claud *sulk*

anyway, take heart all you fellow strugglers in lit from my mother's words:

me (while reading the good essays): "mum these people write so well! it's bloody depressing."
mum: "good! that's the first step. first you feel depressed, unworthy - get a lovely little inferiority complex and feel like absolute shit. then, THEN, from that fertile compost heap will sprout a magnificent plant of a writer."

...

well, if anything, at least she's encouraging.