My alarm goes off to remind me that I have to take the kids to school.
Do not cry. You can cry when they’re gone. When you’re alone in the house, you can have a nice little nervous breakdown and scream and cry and whimper all you like but not right now. Not when they can see.
I’ve been trending down this hill for a while now. A few months. Definitely since I finished the 3rd round edits on the 2nd fantasy novel. I’ve been pushing myself to do what Jim Butcher refers to as “Butt in Chair Time,” because he is correct – stories don’t magically appear on the page. You have to sit your butt in the chair and work to bring them out into the world.
But it’s getting harder right now and the slope is slippery.
Suck it up. Nothing good ever came without hard work. You know that.
Like a good girl, I frequent the sites and blogs of those who spout advice about this and that as it pertains to writing, seeking those nuggets of information that will inspire, that will teach, that will make things easier or better or more intangibly AWESOME.
They depress me. I read their articles and think My work isn’t worth shit. I don’t do this, I don’t do that. I lack that obscure fruity spice addition that’s so popular among the Gourmet DIY industry right now. People say my work is good, but what if they’re just trying to spare my feelings?
You’ll never know if you don’t try, they say. If you try and fail, at least you learn something, right?
But what if your failure affects other people? It’s a lot of money to self-publish. Hell, it’s a lot of money just to get a developmental and line edit before sending queries to agents for a shot at traditional publishing as is often suggested these days.
Lately I’ve been wondering if the best I can do is just write all my stories and save them for my grandchildren or some crap like that, because they’ll probably be the only ones who might find them interesting.
Do you really want to be that person, Katty?
I don’t know. Right now, all I do know is that it feels like I’m doing everything wrong.
SquarePeg Books 
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