All those near misses outlined in my first post have affected my confidence, not just about myself or my abilities or my work but about life itself, enormously.

When I realised how much it was affecting me I vowed to quit film by my 30th birthday if I still hadn't gotten anything produced with proper funding. I kept my vow.

I also developed skills in public relations to pay the bills and help keep my self esteem as a human being in tact. I've taken care to look after myself - and as a writer I take the Tomas Mann route - he says the bourgois life is the best one for an artist, and it certainly is for me. The stability and the comfort of a loving husband, cats, nice coffee and good lighting really helps.

But here's where I take issue with Ivanveen (whose posts I've enjoyed and agreed with in the main): I give business reports and make presentations to clients all the time. It's NOTHING LIKE the betrayals and disappointments I've experienced with writing, and I don't think it is for my business colleagues, who don't have artistic ambitions, either.

With the success or failure of a book or other creative project go years and years of work and time and missed opportunities invested, as well as hopes dashed and ambitions humiliated. With the success or failure of a presentation to a client go hours of paid cushy work. Big deal. There are plenty of other clients out there, and, crucially, there is a huge demand and therefore funding for my services.

I'm aware that the work doesn't reflect me and it's of a prosaic enough nature that I bet no one ever sat around dreaming of the nobel prize for public relations while they wrote it. What's more, it's well paid, which really takes any sting out of the occasional rejection or humiliation.

This is why I think doing this kind of work has been so great for my writing - apart from simply funding it. It's taught me the value of working in an unambitious, grounded and practical way every day. Of lowering my expectations and enjoying the simple yet sustaining pleasures of normal working life. For example, getting paid! - and therefore not worrying about money the way I did for over a decade when I was just writing. Another example: I write to people, they answer. In the publishing world I frequently wait months to hear back. There's none of the power tripping and everyday humiliations that go on in publishing where people higher up the food chain know you're desperate and step on you accordingly.

I have been treated like a child in publishing. Patronised, lied to and treated ridiculously - ie one of them tried to tell me it would be dreadful of me to go with another publisher after they had bought me lunch. Please.

Working in the 'normal world' has helped me have the confidence to see these petty power moves for what they are - pathetic. Working in the business world has helped me get my confidence back, confidence that is needed to face an empty screen every day; confidence that is needed to deal with the business world of writing. It's helped me reclaim my expectations of what a profession should provide, and how I should be treated.

Now I sit down to write as Isak Dineson recommneded: without hope and without despair.

Let's trade - you know a lot of artists. Well I know, and love, a fair few lawyers. Here's what I've observed:

- Lawyers are more likely to speak in clauses and subclauses than other people.

- They're more likely to stop a lively bitching session short by listing someone's legal entitlements.

- Corporate lawyers are often on to their second marriage by their mid forties and possibly their third by their fifties. At least one of these marriages will have been to another lawyer. And it will have failed.

And that's just a start. See? There are generalisations you can make about lawyers that wouldn't apply to jockeys for example. And I know it helps lawyers to support one another on the basis of all that they have in common. For example when my marriage to my lawyer husband was on the rocks the partner at my husband's law firm was super supportive, because of the woeful marital track record of the whole office. So in that regard my husband's common experience with his colleaugues was helpful to us. As opposed to say if we were having financial difficulties.

That's why artists and writers are sharing their experiences here. I don't think they or I are claiming to have it tougher. We're claiming to have been affected by the particular challenges of our profession, as opposed to the particular challenges of other ones. Why does that threaten you so?

Nope. I'm allergic to competitiveness and it's terrible for my writing.

Jealousy too - I've had my moments but I'm getting better at avoiding and overcoming it as I get older.

In India, where boys have a very different cultural value and status than girls, it's a common story that some people have daughter after daughter after daughter, trying to get a boy. These families are then saddled with daughters they didn't want and can ill afford. The daughters are saddled with parents who didn't want them in the first place and whose birth was seen as a huge disappointment by the father and a failure on the part of the mother. In cases like these sex selective abortion is better.

In the west it's very different. Sons don't support their parents or live with them until they die. Girls don't require huge dowry payments on marriage.

What's going to happen to the 'family balance' (what a euphemism) if one of these children is gay? Or has a disability? Or doesn't act girly enough? Or or or ... doesn't fulfil Mummy and Daddy's prescriptions for a perfect life right down to the letter?