Fear, Shmear
I’m having a hard time staying focused on Panty Snatch today as I had an exciting idea for the premise of Booby Trap last night that’s just not leaving me alone. Great problem to have, right? I’m getting it all down in SuperNoteCard while I have it in my head and it’s flowing like butter down the side of a volcano. And the premise for the third book in my head, Tail Gate, is beginning to bubble as well…
I’ve also been thinking about yesterday’s post where I listed a couple of the things I fear about embarking on writing full time, and I realized that I said I feared I’d never get published. But I don’t. I’m not really scared of that at all - I think I wrote it because I’m expected to feel that way. It’s a trope: Aspiring writer fears she’ll never be published.
Actually I fear low-quality publication or my own loss of enjoyment in the act of writing far more than not being published. I *know* I will be published - it might take ten years, but if I keep learning from criticism, improving my writing, and never give up, it will happen. My writing career has already begun. It’s just the course of it that’s up in the air. Will I be published next year or in 2014? Will my first book sell well, or poorly? Will my second be published at all? Will I shift genres? What new tricks will I learn once I start hearing feedback from a wider audience?
All interesting questions, but not really scary. The only scary questions are: will my writing suck? Will I know when “good enough” is actually good? And will I ever be happy enough with my work that I’m willing to stop revising it to death?
In early 2008 Michelle left a fulfilling career as interactive director in an integrated marketing agency to pursue her passion for writing great stories filled with fascinating, intense, real characters who will do anything necessary to achieve their dreams. She’s co-written the audio-play of a Louis L’Amour short story produced by Bantam and Beau L’Amour, worked as an executive assistant for a Hollywood publicist, taught English in Spain, and enjoyed the lofty title of Romance Director running the personals sections of a newsweekly in Los Angeles. She lives in Austin, Texas and spends her spare time adding poems to
It’s all scary. Through ARWA, we’ve learned too much… Simply being published isn’t the realization of our hopes and dreams, it’s the beginning of the sheer torture of sell-through and midlist. Is my writing good enough? Is my editor behind my work? Will my voice connect with the readers of this genre? Will I sell enough books that I actually get a check in addition to my advance? Will I sell enough books that an editor actually wants another one from me? And then, of course, there’s always the question: will the sewers of my brain continue to spew or will I have to start eating prunes?