The threshold

This fragment from Mansfield's diaries, close to the end of her life, hits a little too close to home.

Above all else, I do still lack application. It's not right. There is so much to do, and I do so little. Look at the stories that wait and wait, just at the threshold. Why don't I let them in? (The Dove's Nest xvi; from her Diary, July 1921)

Indeed. Why didn't she? Why don't we? And then:

My deepest desire is to be a writer, to have 'a body of work' done--and there the work is, there the stories wait for me, grow tired, wilt, fade, because I will not come. When first they knock, how eager and fresh they are! And I hear and I acknowledge them, and till I go on sitting at the window, playing with the ball of wool. What is to be done?

Such a mystery of creativity and work.
Back to Mrs. Dalloway I go.