Jane leaned back in her chair and pondered which one of her books could stand the test of time and become a classic. It was hard to say, because every book held a different meaning for her and this meaning didn’t necessarily align with the reader’s experience of it—and reader experience was, in the end, what it was all about.

This led her to Facebook. She let her mouse hover over the group she’d set up a while ago. She could just ask her most devoted readers. But that would be gaming the system. And just another way of looking for instant gratification, the sort of short-term pleasure that—according to the many quotes she’d been scrolling through today—was just another form of procrastination. No, Jane knew she shouldn’t go down the Facebook rabbit hole of ego stroking and fishing for compliments. Instead, she should write. She should just write. It was as simple as that. Perhaps not easy, but the logic was as simple as could be.

Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe her creative well had been replenished. If anything, her subconscious was bursting at the seams with emotions that needed processing. Jane needed to write. She didn’t care if what she wrote was the biggest drivel ever written. She just needed to touch her fingers to the keyboard and channel some of the emotions that had been eating at her from the inside. It was the only—and best—way she knew how to deal with life.

She opened a new document and closed all the other applications on her computer. It was just her and the page. Facing each other. Going head-to-head. It wouldn’t be a discreet, bordering on cowardly confrontation like Sheryl and Annie had sat through the other day—another thing Jane needed desperately to write off her. When it came to facing the page, Jane could be brave. Not always—and not nearly as often enough as she’d like—but she could be and that was all that mattered. She had precedent. She had a shelf full of books in the shop downstairs that had her name embossed across their spine. Books she had written and that had brought joy to hundreds of other people, people she didn’t even know. That had to count for something.