September 21, 2022
Week 102
Emotional State: Go, Go, Gadgeting
Books & The High Speed of Life
Life has taken an unexpected, yet somewhat expected, turn in the past few days. It’s one of those moments where you’ve speculated and made a plan. Then the plan kicks into high gear before you were really ready and you can’t catch your breath.
I’m at the top of the roller coaster, feeling my hair lift away from my face as we prepare to drop. My stomach churns, my heart pounds, and the only way forward is quite literally forward.
I’m not ready. Well, I am technically mostly almost totally ready. Sort of. Or rather, I am not ready but I can be and will be, because I don’t have a choice. (Sorry to be vague, but it’s not ready for prime time yet. And also, not really as big a thing as I’m making it seem with my obscurity.)
This got me thinking about books and publishing, writing advice, schedules, routines, the big push to publish, publish, publish, the pressure we put on ourselves to keep up with the Jones’ while battling our inner demon, Imposter Syndrome.
I’ve talked about this a lot lately, but I still need to, which means I haven’t wrestled this particular thought to the ground. We’re still grappling and will continue to do so until I can find a way to defeat my impatience and my need to have everything now, now, now.
Bam.
There it is. The thought bubble I grappled with on my roller coaster spiral. I’m chasing success and if I’m not fast enough, good enough, put together enough, I’ll fail. I’ll be a failure.
Or rather, I already am.
Because I started this process much too late, because I missed the prime moment to launch a self-publishing career (either 2010ish or 2018ish), or because I was too scared to write or share my writing for 30 years. If I run fast enough, go go, gadget enough, I’ll catch up and be a success.
That’s all poppycock, by the way. All of it. It’s my inner demon chewing on my dreams and confidence the way it does when I don’t feed it enough. But knowing what insecurity is playing into my spin cycle helps me dismantle it and stop the spinning. Mostly.
If I can take the pressure off the publishing game, then I can be free to manage the oncoming train of life I can’t avoid and don’t want to (mostly). And if I get something published in November because it feels right, it happens organically, and everything lines up, awesome. If I don’t, that’s okay too.
And none of it makes me a failure.