It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, l think I’ve seen the ‘light’.

It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface, and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask.

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents to me as a time when l finally get over a period of self-doubt, where a series of events started to make me question why l want to be a writer.

I mean why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, snd the have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questions your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting you.

Are we only a success or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job, and then find themselves plying this ‘other trade’ during the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticized for other but no less subjective reasons.

It seems like a no-win situation but these are the times when your mettle is tested severely.

But in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and it is published, even if it is only on Amazon, not that publishing on Amazon is any less important that if it was with a mainstream publisher.

You can sit back and say with pride l did that.

And that metaphorical light, you ask.

When you make a sale.