"A third novel, like a third album, is notoriously difficult," suggested someone. Carnivorous Cow disagreed. She thought the first was the most difficult - once one had the attention of the publishers / record companies, the media, and the buying public, it was merely a question of maintaining that. Which the author in question hadn't managed to do.
She had, in the interim, moved to foreign climes and married. And, apparently, gushed about her happiness in a women's magazine. Which had everyone shaking their heads and clicking their tongues sadly. "Well, of course, then!" exclaimed one. "How can she be expected to produce good writing if all her creative energy is being expended between her cambric sheets?"
Carnivorous Cow reflected on that. It was true that much of the really great creative work had been born out of despair, frustration, anomie and angst. Some out of ascetic contemplation. Some out of abundant, overwhelming joy. But rarely were truly great works the product of smug satisfaction.
The initial, heady rush of new love, or the feverish grip of passion, or the roller-coaster ride of intense emotion that accompanied watershed moments often spilled over in creative ways, even among the greyest, most boring accountants or engineers; but once one shrugged on the downy anorak of comfort the roller-coaster levelled out, the sky returned to blue, and a sense of normality absorbed the response excesses. Emotional intensity settled. Neutral colours returned to one's palette and one's haptic vision faded. A butterfly was once more a butterfly and not a metaphor, and the dishes still needed to be washed.
It might be possible, she conceded, to code a really slick spreadsheet macro, or spec a really strong bridge, or proofread a manuscript flawlessly - good work, too, but not *creative* work. One can read only so much Dickens before one yearns for the creativity of a Rushdie novel, look at so much photorealism before the Fauves beckon.
Of course it was a choice - no one was denying the writer her right to domestic smugness. So long as she accepted that it came at the cost of her art.