"You're a Poet, Tom"

(from This Literary Life by Peter van Straaten)

Writing in general is a difficult life ambition. Being a poet is worse. Worse than playwrighting. There are so many potholes in the way to achieving one's own voice. So many arms reaching off from the roadside & dragging one into the shrubbery. One wrong turn & you've given it all up to be a breadwinner. Another & you're in utter darkness, questioning not only your stanzas, but the very rising of a morning's sun. On a fourth hand, one can't take themselves too seriously or they'll end their merit & fluidity with a stale underbite of delusion. Doubt is one's best friend along with confidence. If one doesn't believe in one's work, how could they ever keep scribbling poems in the first place? Doubt keeps us honest as confidence remains our chief addiction.

This Dutch cartoonist has a real mind for what writing is about. I would highly recommend This Literary Life if one can find it. I found mine in an English language bookstore in Amsterdam, way back in 1997.