Last week, I had a case of the blahs for a couple days. The week before, I was SO pumped up about writing and building a career. I made plans. I outlined goals. I set deadlines. I was ready to ROCK. I was reading Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle Laporte, and I was so inspired that I committed to it wholeheartedly, spending spare time doing the worksheets and further mapping out how I want my life to go and, as she preaches, how I want to feel in my career and my everyday life. I then downloaded Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and set a schedule for a certain amount of time a day for YBBBP, a certain amount for editing, a certain amount of time for blogging/social networking/research, and the rest of the time for Firestarter.
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| I may have overdosed a little bit. |
Total this adds up to about four to five hours a day. I work a bills paying job six hours a day. This is not a big deal. I can do the outside work in my pajamas, on my couch, while my boyfriend is doing grad school work. I can do this while I'm eating breakfast, before bed. I have the time to do this. One of the major advantages of not collecting a full-time salary is having this extra time.
I don't have a kid. I don't have a dog. I don't really even take the time to care for my plants properly.
So why do I sometimes have these days when I am SO overwhelmed by this whole idea? Am I putting too much pressure on myself? Am I freaking out because I'm getting ready to query my first book and I'm scared of the rejection? Scared it's not going to work? Am I just lazy? Was I still shaking off some remnants of depression from skipping my workouts that weekend, drinking too much, and forgetting my supplements? Am I afraid of failure?
Or, am I afraid of success?
It's nice to think of all the great things that could happen if your book is published. Best case scenario, an agent loves it, a couple publishing houses love it, I get a huge advance, all the stars line up and large masses of people love it, it gets turned into a movie, and I get shittons of money.
The worst case scenario, no agents take it on and it never gets published. And maybe I consider self publishing.
What is more likely to happen is somewhere in between. An agent might like it well enough, but ask for a ton of changes that take awhile, but I'll be on a deadline this time. And maybe an editor likes it, but they want more changes and they want them yesterday. I get a tiny advance and a tinier marketing budget, and I am expected to promote the hell out of it myself (ugh, marketing). And then all my friends and family will buy it, and not too many other people. And even if I'm lucky enough to get this far, I'd better have already finished a second book and be polishing that while I'm trying to pimp out my first one in this crazy, insane market and economy. And since I won't be making enough to be doing this full-time, I will be doing this pretty much every waking hour.
And what is even MORE likely to happen, statistically, is that my first one won't get published, (and possibly won't even catch the interest of an agent), and I won't have to worry about any of this for a really long time. I know this from reading way too many agent and author blogs who all talk about how cutthroat the industry is and how much pressure there is on writers these days. For awhile, I didn't read these blogs because they put me in this mindset. But it's important to know what the landscape is like, to be realistic about my chances, to try to milk every insight into writing that I possibly can. Isn't it?
Most of the time, I try to push thoughts like these out. Mostly because it sucks to think thoughts that make you feel bad. I mean, who wants that? Also because I know, they're extremely detrimental to my writing process. Read: they bring it to a crashing halt.
But this happens every once in awhile. I stop and think what am I doing this for? What if I don't succeed and I've invested so much time and Dizzle has had to suffer through this process with me and my friends and my family? What if I DO succeed and I can't handle the stress and the pressure? If this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing, what AM I supposed to be doing? What am I going to DO with the rest of my life? (This question, by the way, is particularly terrifying and caused me to take the copywriting job that made me miserable).
So yeah. I freak out sometimes. Don't you?
And what is even MORE likely to happen, statistically, is that my first one won't get published, (and possibly won't even catch the interest of an agent), and I won't have to worry about any of this for a really long time. I know this from reading way too many agent and author blogs who all talk about how cutthroat the industry is and how much pressure there is on writers these days. For awhile, I didn't read these blogs because they put me in this mindset. But it's important to know what the landscape is like, to be realistic about my chances, to try to milk every insight into writing that I possibly can. Isn't it?
Most of the time, I try to push thoughts like these out. Mostly because it sucks to think thoughts that make you feel bad. I mean, who wants that? Also because I know, they're extremely detrimental to my writing process. Read: they bring it to a crashing halt.
But this happens every once in awhile. I stop and think what am I doing this for? What if I don't succeed and I've invested so much time and Dizzle has had to suffer through this process with me and my friends and my family? What if I DO succeed and I can't handle the stress and the pressure? If this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing, what AM I supposed to be doing? What am I going to DO with the rest of my life? (This question, by the way, is particularly terrifying and caused me to take the copywriting job that made me miserable).
So yeah. I freak out sometimes. Don't you?