Depression

I was suddenly struck by depression earlier today. I was checking up messages from an e-mail address where I asked people to post if they were willing to do an interview for an article I've been assigned to write. No answers. In the website I sent my original query some stupid jerks had begun to make some lame-ass remarks. No one had replied in order to answer my query.

Of course the first thing that occurred to me was that now I can't get story made. The next thing was that I can't make any other story. And then it occurred to me that my days as a freelance writer are over and I have to crawl back to my mother's or something like that.

Similar thoughts occurred when Elina found out that someone had already made a book we were asked to do couple months back - a new kind of book about a newborn baby, with blank pages to fill with memoirs and pictures and stuff like that.

I also read somewhere that there are already enough books about Kekkonen, the long-running president of Finland. I was going to make - when I would've had the time (which is maybe never) - the how-to-dress book according to Kekkonen, since I've always thought he was a very smart dresser. (Just check this out. The picture's quality is not very good, but he's one cool mother in that. I think it's from the mid-seventies when Kekkonen still reigned supreme. Damn, what a man!)

There are so many books that you'd have to do first thing in the morning after you get the idea: short, snappy non-fiction books with fun trivia and nice pictures. Don't wait. Do them. That would be writer's almanac, if I had one. Instead I keep scanning obscure paperbacks for Pulp and write long and boring articles about forgotten writers... (I started to dream yesterday about a radio program (which I would make, of course) that would deal with forgotten authors. I was talking to a friend on a phone and suggested Elizabeth Taylor. Who's read her? No one? I haven't, but once she was a respected and read writer. And this was in the 1950's, not 1870's or anything like that. And no, I'm not talking about the actor. My friend suggested Gwen Bristow. Anyone? I know the name only from the legion of her books that fill the thrift stores.)

Ah well, must get back to writing about the fifties noir lit by female writers. Let me tell you, Elizabeth Sanxay Holding is a very good writer. Read her "The Blank Wall" (1947). It's outstanding. The bright prose and short sentences take you away.

As for the depression.. well, it comes and goes. I scanned the cover illo for the coming issue of Isku (it's great, once again, by Jukka Murtosaari) and started to write the noir article. Now, this is me doing what I can.