November 10, 2021
Day 394, Week 57
- Emotional State: Fighting the Tide
The Books
I’ve been pushing against the flood of doubt recently. Doubt brought on by comparing myself to another author. One doing better than me in their first month than I’ve done since I launched 2.5 months ago. And I think I’ve stopped it. The water no longer pushes against my chest, but is pooling around by my ankles.
You’d think impostor syndrome would die after you publish your book. Nope. Not even close.
I’ll get out of it. I always do. Or at least I’ll ignore it enough that it’ll get buried by the day-to-day and I’ll forget it’s a thing until I read or watch something sad and find myself sobbing uncontrollably and harder than the scene warrants. I’m not entirely sure that’s the healthy way to tackle life, but it’s worked this far, so I’ll just keep chugging along.
I’ve also been chugging along at Nanowrimo. I have written every single day so far (except today, but I have time). One of the days I was bored stiff. It’s hard to explain, but it wasn’t because of the subject matter. I was just bored at sitting there writing, but I did 2k words that day. On Saturday, I didn’t want to do it. At all. But I sat down and made myself start. And wrote 3700 words.
Butt in seat works, people, is what I’m saying.
The book itself is coming along. I’ve had some surprises – pantsing is fun that way – that were not expected. Scenes evolved in a way that I did not think would happen and it’s good, really good. It’s throwing a wrench into things, but I think I know where it’s going to go.
I will say, this book is flowing better and faster than book 2. Figuring out what happens in Book 2 before sitting down and writing Book 3 made it a lot easier to run with. And writing them back to back made it even easier. It’s giving me really bad ideas, like writing the entire series in one fell swoop and then doling out the books on a 6 mos. release schedule.
The editing alone – one book after the other – would kill me. I love to write, but not to my death. At least not in the next twelve months.
Life
In other news, I’m still gaming. Reading less, which is a bummer, but gaming more. We finally finished cleaning out the garage of all of the pre-flood basement items and have restocked the pantry shelves down there. They are not as full as they were before. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t feel the need or if I just can’t face throwing out a bunch of perfectly good food because it floated in river water for a day or two.
We also need to finish (a year later, ahem) the second bedroom redecorating we’d planned to do, because we have family coming in for the holidays and I don’t think they’ll find it comfortable to on hard wood floors. That may just be me though.
Our plant, Eddie, the lemon tree, has been brought in for the season and sits in the landing space on the stairs. It’s a self-pollinating tree and it pollinates all year round. It is currently flowering and the sweet citrusy smell as I walk past makes my day just that little bit better.
It may even push harder against that tide of darkness. Maybe.
To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.