Norman Mailer Writes As Good Well As Me Do

THE SPOOKY ART: SOME THOUGHTS ON WRITING
NONFICTION BY NORMAN MAILER
In section ‘Living in the World', exploring origin of creativity, Mr. Mailer  the need to be world-active  and also need to retreat.

“A writer is recognized as great when his work is done, but while he is writing, he rarely feels so great. He is more likely to live with the anxiety of ‘Can I do it? Should I let up? Will dread overwhelm me if I explore too far? Or depression deaden me if I do not push on? Can I even do it?’ As he writes, a man is reshaping his character. He is a better man, and he is worse, once he has finished a book.”

And I notice that Mr. Mailer has escaped, while having gone right up to the fence of engagement, stuck his nose right in, the whole issue of approval-of-others.  He skates right by the ultimate confrontation of Self seeing its own dependencies with other people.  He has done this, apparently, successfully since 1948 when at age twenty-five he published The Naked and the Dead.   I notice this all, I care, because I see where I have stopped, I have myself permitted my own overwhelm of dread and depression and insecurity, and have not submitted to a publisher.  I need some approval, I feel, and worse, I see I feel needing approval as a weakness, something that I shouldn't have, this need, and I stop myself from publishing. I seem to only intellectually forgive myself for not writing because I love to write -- but end up unpublished which certainly fits writing only for myself and not others approval.  Ha!  I do seem to have escaped the "need others approval" to WRITE, anyway!  Funny though, I do see that what I write is good and useful.  Just don't know how to go from un-read to read.  Well, truly, I do know how, get my work out there and eventually some will pick up on it and recommend it to others.  It seems my work is good, but needs to be in context, I have put copies on the 'net but never ever get a response, and part of me believes that means I've wasted my time, this is not a good book.