The satisfaction of writing

This is taken from Peter Mayle's Toujours Provence

"Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living." That was Flaubert's opinion, and it is a fair expression of the way it feels if you choose to spend your working days putting words down on pieces of paper.

For most of the time, it's a solitary, monotonous business. There is the occasional reward of a good sentence--or rather, what you think is a good sentence, since there's nobody else to tell you. There are long, unproductive stretches when you consider taking up some form of regular and useful employment like chartered accountancy. There is constant doubt that anyone will want to read what you're writing, panic at missing deadlines that you have imposed on yourself, and the deflating realization that those deadlines couldn't matter less to the rest of the world. A thousand words a day, or nothing; it makes no difference to anyone else but you. That part of writing is undoubtedly a dog's life.

What makes it worth living is the happy shock of discovering that you have manged to give a few hours of entertainment to people you have never met. And if some of them should write to tell you, the pleasure of receiving their letters is like applause. It makes up for all the grind. You abandon thoughts of a career in accountancy and make tentative plans for another book.

On book-signing:

Fortified by my dose of glamour, i left the moguls to it and went down the narrow Rue Bivouac-Napoleon to the English Bookshop, preparing for the odd experience of sitting in a shop window hoping for someone--anyone--to ask me to sign a book. I'd done one or two signings before. They were unnerving occasions when i had been stared at from a safe distance by people who were unwilling to venture within talking range. Perhaps they thought I'd bite. Little did they know the relief authors feel when a brave spirit approaches the table. After a few minutes of sitting on your own, you're ready to clutch at any straw and sign anything from books and photographs to old copies of Nice-Matin and checks.