Courage, Where Art Thy Sticking Place?

I can do this.

I can be brave.

I can set my fiction bread out on the internet waters and pray it comes back tenfold. I can do this nine times. Because that’s the length of my final short list.

I can run the risk of rejection and hope for the reward of acceptance. I can even hope for more informative rejection letters. If those even exist any more.

They’d better.

But then again, there’s like billions of people who think they can write books, sending in their unedited NaNoWriMo thing that is basically fanfic with very few serial numbers filed off. As far as they know, I’m just another one of those fine and optimistic people.

I may not be what they’re looking for. I may not be there, yet. I may be using the completely wrong pitch. I don’t know.

OR… which I am likely to think at the impact end of that gif up there… I may just suck and not know it. Like everyone else in the slush pile.

I just have to keep telling myself that they don’t recognise my greatness and keep pushing on. Because becoming a Paid Author requires and ego the approximate size of Russia. You got to believe in yourself like nobody else will, because nobody will until you’re already out there, published, and starting to gain a fandom.

Nobody.

Not even your family.

They have been listening to your self-doubt, anxiety, and tireless yammering about whatever you’ve been writing for however long it took. They’ve worn out every possible response to your horseshit since you first decided to become and Author.

You have to have a truly loving family for them to want to read your stuff or be your sounding board for the number of years it takes to get out into the market.

As you may have guessed, I’ve got intermittent depression about this and levels of anxiety that are so high that they’re in the L5 orbit. [That’s past the moon for all you non-scientific types out there.]

The only way out is through.

Gotta push. And keep pushing.