Caution: Here be self pity. SLAP ME ALREADY.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been sort of kind of a little bit not here so much lately.

No hard feelings if you haven’t.

I haven’t done a ROW80 update in a while, haven’t participated in WIPpet Wednesday for a few weeks. Mostly it’s because I have nothing to share or update. I’m stuck. Frozen. Dead in the water. THE THINGS THEY ARE NOT GOING SO GOOD IN MY BRAIN-HOLE is what I’m saying. I can’t write, can’t even make sense of my own work when I read over it, can’t focus, can’t brain today I have the dumb, what have you. Can’t think of much to write about here, obviously.

Maybe it’s the pressure. My editor was sick, but he should be ready for me to send my manuscript soon (hence the reading over for continuity issues after I made changes). I’m honestly terrified that I’m going to get this thing back with nothing but a message that says “this is crap, try again.”* Now, that would work out to be less expensive for me than an actual edit, but it might not be the best thing for my spirit. Or my career. Or my sanity.

I can’t read blogs about publishing right now. Thinking about formatting is giving me stomach issues. Celebrating friends’ successes is still making me happy, but I can’t think about my own work right now. I’m thiiiiis close to saying screw it, I didn’t need to follow that dream, I’m fine, it was a stupid idea anyway and wasn’t likely to come to anything because I lack guts and persistence and other good stuff.

I won’t, because momentum, but it’s a thought.

Oh, and I’m looking at eighteen-year-olds on Twitter who finished a draft of a novella and are like “I AM THE BEST WRITERER EVER AND AM GOING TO MAKE A BRAZILLION DOLLARS WHEN I PUBLISH THIS NEXT WEEK WHO WANTS TO PHOTOSHOP ME A COVER LOLZ” and wonder where I can get some of that confidence (if not some of that business sense, because that sounds like a bad plan to me). Because I feel like a bad writerer right now.

I’m going insane, basically.

On top of that, AJ is going through a really bad time at work. He doesn’t take it out on me or the kids, but it’s still one more thing that I’m worried about, and it means that I can’t really talk to him about my self-imposed issues. Because really, I’ve brought this all on myself, so what right to I have to gripe? Well, except here…

*headdesk*

In other news, I turned 33 yesterday. I can’t really take credit for this achievement, as I wasn’t responsible for bringing myself into the world and I’m fairly risk-averse, so survival was likely… but I’m still really happy about this turn of events. Another spin around the sun is definitely something to celebrate, and too many people don’t get to enjoy lives as long as I’ve had. I got to see both of my parents on my birthday for the first time in years, got a FaceTime call from my extended family in Ontario (and they sang “Happy Birthday” to me, which made me cry), spent 6 hours driving (not the most fun part), saw a juvenile bald eagle (which I count as a gift from Mother Nature, because why not), had a lovely evening… good times. OH, and epic cutie-pie Sidney Crosby scored a goal in the final hockey game of the Olympics, and I’m pretty sure that was just for me.

On every birthday I declare that THIS is going to be my year, the year when I do things and make things happen and yadda yadda. Maybe this is it. Or maybe every year just builds on the one before, and there is no one year.

Time will tell, I guess. Until then, I’m going to keep on going. I’m starting an online course today about using Scrivener. It’s my favourite writing software, but I only understand its most basic features and would like to know more. This won’t help with the fact that I need to learn how to use Word and track changes for editing (Help? Anyone?), but it will help when it comes time to publish. I have a friend’s book I promised to look over, and I’ll get to that once this ms has gone to the butcher editor. I’ll have a cover artist starting soon, which might be a nice distraction. And there are projects lined up, begging for attention…

It’s not that there’s nothing to do, it’s just that I can’t do it.

Except that I will. I’m just going to keep going and trust that things are going to get better. That’s a good plan, right?

RIGHT?

–

*To be fair to my editor, he would probably phrase it more nicely, as a shit sandwich. You know, where you frame the harsh bits in niceness. Like, “This was an interesting effort. But it sucks. Hey, I saw a picture of your cat and she’s really cute.” BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE NICEST THINGS HE WILL BE ABLE TO FIND TO SAY.