[Joely]

Thank you very much to both of you. This has turned out to be a period when I learn a hell of a lot about myself, if nothing else.

I had a chat with a good friend of mine last night and he said: "You know what, you need to come out of the closet." He's gay, you see, and he said he went through the same things as I'm going through because he didn't accept himself as gay. His family are Catholic so he had the same treatment for being gay as I get from my mother for being a writer. So I've rejected being a writer, and rejected a huge part of myself and what I do as a result. It's no wonder I struggle so much.

It'll sound odd to say that I deny that I'm a writer - what I do by telling everybody is trying to make it true by making it true outside myself. Yet inside, I'm still in denial about it. I hope that if I say it enough, if I convince enough people, I'll believe it myself, but I don't. I don't believe I'm capable of writing what I've written, or that I'm capable of what's already happened. I keep waiting for the bubble to burst, to wake up and realise it was all a dream.

That, I guess, is what I have to work on next.

J x

P.S. On a positive note, I just finished my first academic piece for the research company I've signed up to. I should make £45 from it, plus a bonus if I receive a high feedback score. It's the first money I've ever made as a writer. Of course, it's not what I really want, yet, but it's a start.