Lucky charms

I have just finished a book (writing one, not reading one, you fool) and, as ever, I am hoping that it’s good enough and people will like it. Can you ever know? In this respect, and in quite a few others, it’s a little like a band putting out a new album, which they may have been working on for years, which they feel they have put their whole life into, and which goes out there to be judged by others who (let’s be entirely frank here) may not have their best interests at heart. This must apply particularly to someone like Bryan Ferry, who works obsessively for years and years on a record until it gleams in the moonlight, only to have it reviewed by some spotty herbert who listens to it twice and says he much prefers early Roxy Music.

I have spoken to many writers about this, and a few musicians, and their responses are much the same: that you must stop worrying about the product at the end, and concentrate on enjoying the process. Making the record, or writing the book, should be the satisfying bit. Once it is finished, it stops being anything to do with you, although you will have to promote it tirelessly, by playing live if you are a musician, or being interviewed on BBC Shetland’s highly rated Good Morning Shetland show and speaking to single-figure audiences at literary festivals if you are a writer. And in each case you wait to see whether enough people will buy your perfectly honed piece of work to enable you to make another one. One failed record and your record company may drop you. One failed book and your agent may return your calls less frequently and your publisher change his identity to avoid you.