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Dec. 6th, 2005 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeThere are two emotions warring for dominance in my mind, or I should say, an emotion and a lack of it. One is fear, and the other is nothing.
It's a strange way to live, this detachment. I look at a paragraph and go "that's crap" and highlight and delete without feeling anything. And somewhere in the back of my mind a voice is screaming constantly now but I can turn down the volume till it's just a contorted pair of lips shaping terror that I don't feel.
It's probably better this way, at least right now. I did start editing the Sophie novel tonight, and while there's still huge swaths of dialogue that I've marked for one last go-over I've started to fill in some of the gaps that were simply marked 'more here' and tweak some of the paragraphs so they have less adverbs and schtick and more meat and grit. And I'm only on the beginning of the adult phase, too. Dealing with Val is going to be a bitch, but he'll capitulate in the face of my blank stare. He'd better.
This feels like the worst kind of audacity, most of the time now. Jumped-up arrogance that says, who the hell told you to think you could write? The impression of arrogance feeds shrinking fear. How dare I. Cold works, right now, because it's the only way I'm going to get started in this. After a few days we'll see. Right now I can't look at anything I write and unwrap myself because I know what I'm going to say. And one of the questions I may ask at the Maui conference, or at World Fantasy Con, or anywhere I get a chance to ask a professional writer who's made it to where they can do this for a living is definitely going to be, does this happen to everyone? I'd really like to ask someone like Stephen King, someone who's probably floating about the same distance in the deep end as I am, but I don't think he's going to be at Maui. Though that would damn well be my best chance. Hm. Now I'm just rambling.
Progress has been made. I edited some. I'm tweaking the Pen Bryton query letter again, for those of you who got it the first time around. It's sliding into kitsch, which I hope will be balanced by frankness and wind up being endearing instead of eye-rolling, but I don't know yet. It's also two in the morning, which is undoubtedly affecting my thinking. I'm listening to music that makes me think of words that start in S and end in Y. I'm listening to Maroon 5, too.
Fuck terror. It's still there, but I've at least found a way to deal with it long enough that I can start. Nano was good, and I got a couple drafts out of it, but now it's time to go back to what I was doing and the novels that were so close to completion before it started. No matter how scary it is. I have my sister ring on one hand and my promise ring on the other. I have e-mails that remind me in capital letters and exclamation points. I have my nails dug into the desk and if they were longer they'd be digging half-moon holes and I'd have splinters. I have friends who believe in me, and thank you all for that. So, fuck terror. It's still there, and no matter how many times I'm told, yes, you're a good writer, yes, it'll be fine, you'll be published and it'll be fine, it's not going away. No matter how much I ignore it it's not going to go away. But right now, maybe I can work around it.
Actually, right now, I'm going to bed. But tomorrow. Tomorrow's soon enough to keep on chugging. Finish one query letter. I sent out some short story submissions today. I got some stamps of the right kind to just stick on the envelopes and send out from home, so I don't have to make the excuse that I won't go to the post office today. I tweaked a query letter. I edited some pages of a novel. I have nothing to be ashamed of, either in the quality of my writing, or my work ethic, or anything else where it comes to writing and me. And I'm going to bed before the walls come tumbling down and the fear takes over, because I can feel my hands starting to shake. Tomorrow's another day, and time enough to keep on going.
It's a strange way to live, this detachment. I look at a paragraph and go "that's crap" and highlight and delete without feeling anything. And somewhere in the back of my mind a voice is screaming constantly now but I can turn down the volume till it's just a contorted pair of lips shaping terror that I don't feel.
It's probably better this way, at least right now. I did start editing the Sophie novel tonight, and while there's still huge swaths of dialogue that I've marked for one last go-over I've started to fill in some of the gaps that were simply marked 'more here' and tweak some of the paragraphs so they have less adverbs and schtick and more meat and grit. And I'm only on the beginning of the adult phase, too. Dealing with Val is going to be a bitch, but he'll capitulate in the face of my blank stare. He'd better.
This feels like the worst kind of audacity, most of the time now. Jumped-up arrogance that says, who the hell told you to think you could write? The impression of arrogance feeds shrinking fear. How dare I. Cold works, right now, because it's the only way I'm going to get started in this. After a few days we'll see. Right now I can't look at anything I write and unwrap myself because I know what I'm going to say. And one of the questions I may ask at the Maui conference, or at World Fantasy Con, or anywhere I get a chance to ask a professional writer who's made it to where they can do this for a living is definitely going to be, does this happen to everyone? I'd really like to ask someone like Stephen King, someone who's probably floating about the same distance in the deep end as I am, but I don't think he's going to be at Maui. Though that would damn well be my best chance. Hm. Now I'm just rambling.
Progress has been made. I edited some. I'm tweaking the Pen Bryton query letter again, for those of you who got it the first time around. It's sliding into kitsch, which I hope will be balanced by frankness and wind up being endearing instead of eye-rolling, but I don't know yet. It's also two in the morning, which is undoubtedly affecting my thinking. I'm listening to music that makes me think of words that start in S and end in Y. I'm listening to Maroon 5, too.
Fuck terror. It's still there, but I've at least found a way to deal with it long enough that I can start. Nano was good, and I got a couple drafts out of it, but now it's time to go back to what I was doing and the novels that were so close to completion before it started. No matter how scary it is. I have my sister ring on one hand and my promise ring on the other. I have e-mails that remind me in capital letters and exclamation points. I have my nails dug into the desk and if they were longer they'd be digging half-moon holes and I'd have splinters. I have friends who believe in me, and thank you all for that. So, fuck terror. It's still there, and no matter how many times I'm told, yes, you're a good writer, yes, it'll be fine, you'll be published and it'll be fine, it's not going away. No matter how much I ignore it it's not going to go away. But right now, maybe I can work around it.
Actually, right now, I'm going to bed. But tomorrow. Tomorrow's soon enough to keep on chugging. Finish one query letter. I sent out some short story submissions today. I got some stamps of the right kind to just stick on the envelopes and send out from home, so I don't have to make the excuse that I won't go to the post office today. I tweaked a query letter. I edited some pages of a novel. I have nothing to be ashamed of, either in the quality of my writing, or my work ethic, or anything else where it comes to writing and me. And I'm going to bed before the walls come tumbling down and the fear takes over, because I can feel my hands starting to shake. Tomorrow's another day, and time enough to keep on going.