In Moments of Tiredness…

All writers have their moments of insecurity.

I mentioned that I keep this journal to keep me honest. Life this week has been all about the institution, and very little about me and my work. I feel like I'm procrastinating. Finally, tonight! I see some time to write.

I miss the activity of my inbox. When I was submitting the completed work to agents, there was a buzz of correspondence. Now there are minor skirmishes of occasional activity, but for the most part, I feel disconnected from the world of the business of writing.

So, I must remind myself from my own list.

11. The industry is not the measure of your success. Attention is not the measure of your success. Of course you want to send your work out, make smart marketing decisions, and try to share. The measure of your success is stories written and sent. You can't convince the world it wants your work, but you certainly can't do anything at all unless you're telling stories.

12. Realize that success in writing, like success in anything, is really more about persistance than anything else. Write, learn to market selectively and well, and then market selectively and well. There will be a learning curve. You will battle obscurity. You will make mistakes and get rejections. BUT eventually you'll have enough circulating and people will know who you are, and you'll learn the tricks, and your writing will line up with someone's taste, and more and more things will be accepted.

In the past year, I've circulated Substance of Shadows, and its possibilities are still alive. I've complete Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler, which Cats Curious likes, and which will be published. Drollerie Press still has plans to publish Sister Night, Sister Moon. I have two short stories out for consideration. I have a complete read and a partial read out. I've contributed to two charitable collections. One story has been published in the Drops of Crimson ezine. I'm 16K into my new project, and well underway on applying for a workshop.

I am counting my blessings here. I wonder why, even with all that, it takes such a short time for me to devolve into someone who thinks they have made no headway at all? Ah, such are the mysteries of the writerverse.

So, tonight, it'll either be a rough draft of my VP cover letter, or some serious work on my novel's outline. I mean it. I won't get my mailbox jumping again thinking about the beginning of the semester. Need some creative *me* time.

I'm very curious about all of you. Does this feeling of doubt ever go away? Or does it morph usually into a different, subtle, sinister form?

Bah. January.

Catherine

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Originally published at Writer Tamago. You can comment here or there.