On making one's own luck

I loved Viv Albertine's book and have been re-reading it lately.  I think she's a real inspiration.

On that theme, I just read an interview with her in The Quietus - and the following answer really struck a chord with me.

VA: I think coincidences are more likely to happen if you're working fucking hard at your life. And you're keeping yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally fit. And then you're in places at the time you should be there. Coincidences and luck are very much down to the work you put into yourself in life.

Vincent coming into my life at that moment, the timing was amazing. If it had been a month before or afterwards, it probably wouldn't have had the impact it did. But it was bang on. I was just beginning to emerge, going to art school, healing from all the illness, moving to the sea. It was just right. So that coincidence came. I grabbed onto that and didn't let it go. I saw him as almost a lifeline. Whatever it was that came along had to be a certain mixture of things, otherwise I wouldn't have been interested in grabbing onto that lifeline. But this was big enough, and out of my sphere enough, that I was absolutely taken by the whole thing. But if I hadn't looked after myself, got myself better, been running, gone to art school, I wouldn't have been ready for that. I know other people who have had things drop into their life and they're not ready to take it. And Patti Smith walking in then - if I hadn't taken a trip to New York, if I hadn't worked on myself, if I hadn't believed this was something coming along to show me I could do more, then I wouldn't have been sitting in that café and seen her come in that time.

So yeah, I think coincidences very much have a lot of work behind them. And if you're not fit, you can't benefit from them.