OK so I’m in a kind of limbo at the moment. I am supposed to be rewriting and I have been and I’m over 10k in now but I have hit one of those... hmm moments. Self doubt is a nasty little creature that claws inside, burrows in and refuses to let go. The swinging pendulum of belief and doubt can play havoc with a writer. Well it does for me anyway.

So as I wait for the release of Fire Starter and I ride the ups and downs of Spoilt, I wonder what will happen. Spoilt is still being downloaded and as I pass 95,000 copies and head towards 100, I can’t help be amazed. It is still unreal to me and the belief that I have a book that people may actually like creeps in. Then doubt rears its ugly head (cliché?) and I wonder... when they have to pay, will they? If I can ‘sell’ a quarter of the freebies then I’ll be amazed.

It is all about the ying and yang thing again.  Do you believe you have all your ducks in a row? (Is this a cliché?) Or just when one area of your life is going particularly well (when you feel you aren’t drowning but treading water) then another part of your life pushes you back down.

It seems that fate believes that we require a challenge. That everything cannot go well all the time. There are a few things for me at present that are better than they were. There are couple of aspects in my life that I felt were pushing my head under the water and holding me down, almost like a test of strength and inter fortitude. Life does appear to be random. Good people have bad things happen and not so nice people keep on going. But is this more to do with the fact that not so nice people don’t care what others think. They don’t care what happens to others so go through life easily because they have no conscience.

There will always be someone who wants to tear someone else down. So just when you think you break through the surface and take a deep breath a different hand clamps down and pushes you down again. As though being happy needs to be counteracted with sadness. Perhaps I need to rise above it all. Be strong and ignore the haters but unfortunately I am far too sensitive. I let things bother me far too much. Being nice isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I wonder whether I will find that middle ground and just tread water.

Then I remember that there are people far worse off than me. People who have lost their homes, family members, their whole life ruined and I think I am lucky. I’m healthy and more importantly my kids are. We have a roof over our heads and we are happy (mostly) so really the other little things in life aren’t worth the worry or stress... yet I do. It is all relative I suppose but taking a look at my life occasionally put things back in perspective.

So is it all about balance? Finding somewhere between belief and doubt. Finding somewhere between the good and bad. Treading water. Not allowing yourself to drown in either swing of that pendulum but to stop it in the middle. Having too much belief will lead to ego and delusion, having doubt breeds depression and defensiveness. Have you found your balance? I’m still looking for mine.