[Writer Post]Spring… Time for Blooming Insecurities
It’s Wednesday blog post day, and I almost forgot. Last week was stunningly productive – but then brain crashed for a couple of days. Now I’m getting it back in gear, and – of course – second-guessing everything I did in the last month. Yes, I’m not talking about “budding” insecurities in this first flush of Spring, but full-blown ones.
Yes, it happens. It’s part of the incessant waiting that comes with writing and publishing. You have time to wonder about all the mistakes you might’ve made (and in some cases I probably did make) in formatting, in length… will the publisher like it? Will anyone buy it if the publisher does like it? If I sell something based on a pitch/synopsis, can I really deliver?
These are not uncommon questions to any writer on any level. At least I hope I’m not the only one who’d ever questioned my ability – if I am, then yowza. But I can’t imagine that I am, since this is such a subjective industry. And, yes, I know I can write commercially viable stories that entertain, but I am realistic enough to know – and have the stacks upon stacks of rejections – that not everything sells.
So what do you do about it? Try to come up with productive distractions. I finished re-writing a short story yesterday based on notes by the last editor who read it. Now I need to send it out into the world. I’m reading/editing a project for a friend as a trade arrangement (and it’s a really good trade arrangement!) And I’ll try to come up with something else to work on until I have to return to these projects – one way or another. And I’m trying to not stalk my email. 😎
What do you do to combat the waiting-around insecurities?