It's wicked to mock the afflicted

I love to read. I consume words like a chain smoker's cigarettes. I inhale them deeply and often. Occasionally I write. I scribble little messages to this web journal and write insignificant tales, which rest unseen on my computer. Sometimes when reading, I reflect on how easy it is to write. Oddly I am motivated by mediocracy. It's the I-can-do-that attitude that made American so rich and powerful.
Americans, not American'ts. Right, kids? So sometimes I write. Then there are the novels that make me want to Gogol everything I've written and never type again. I read some authors and wonder what else needs to be said. What has been said could not be improved by me, so why try?

For example, here's a cute little sentence I wrote in a story.

"The cicadas made their songs that ebbed and flowed like metallic ocean waves."

I've written better but it wasn't bad enough to make me remove it. It's got a verb which I sometimes forget to add. So, there it is. The problem is when you put that sentence next to this one by Saul Bellow my own words are exposed as the insignificant dawdlings of an amateur.

"...there was this sound of insects, continental and hemispheric, again and again, like surf, and continuous and dense as stars."