All This Affliction Experienced by the Serious Writer…

All this affliction experienced by the serious writer could be mitigated if it were possible for him to promise and deceive himself, with each new work, that after completing it he would stop writing. Therefore, to see the present work as the last, always. Thus, the illusion of later relief would give strength so that the very painful work of the moment would not afflict, but rather motivate, because it is the last of a spirit that is one step away from rest. Unfortunately, this is not possible. What is possible is to see in dismay how much one still has to do, is to feel imprisoned by duty, obliged to force lines that refuse to come out, and then to fry oneself in a terrible process in which the satisfaction is strange and the result is always the same affliction.