I didn’t understand the whole
fear of success idea until I sold a story.
Someone LIKES my story. Likes it enough to publish it!
Great news, fantastic news, ohmygodidonttotallysuck news.
Emails flew back and forth –
contracts, series suggestions (SERIES?!?), editor assigned, suggestions made
(awesome ones, btw, and I’m hard at work on them now, not writing a blog, no, I’m
writing, honestly), possible spin-off.
My head spun, my heart pounded,
and I had a minor panic attack. Crashed down from Cloud Nine to Basement Cloud,
where they keep the boiler surrounded by rat nests in the dark. I’m scared to
death of both boilers (which can explode) and rats (‘nuff said). Yes, it's probably a metaphor
for something success-related. No, I don’t know what. Cut me some slack, Jack. I’m
a writer, not a philosopher.
I pulled that story (I’ll call it
Shorty Book Two) out of my ass when I was stuck on Book One. I grabbed a minor character
out of it, set it a month after the ending of Book One, and just wrote. It was
terrible. Pulled it out of the garbage six months later when I was again
stuck/sick of Book One, rewrote it and it was a blast, easy to write, with FUN
characters.
Hmm, I thought, this doesn’t suck.
I liked Shorty enough to submit
but didn’t look down the road, story-wise. Still not happy with Book One, which
I sent when asked because it starts the whole shebang (haven’t heard back on
that yet but like the movie advised, I’ve Let It Go…for now. I’ll obsess on it
later – do they like it, is it awful,
will they change their minds, do they still like me, circle yes or no; you
know, the normal writer stuff - when I have time. Which is not now).
My brother (Thanks, J!) talked me down,
reminded me I DID have a general idea on where the story would go. Sure it wasn’t
detailed but goshdarnit I’m a writer and I could pull those details out of my,
um, …head. Time to get organized. Story board, Post-Its, plotting. *whines a little, takes a deep breath*
I can do this. *whines again, slaps myself, glares at hand*
I CAN DO THIS.
Time to get to work. I’ll keep
you posted on my next freak out, I mean progress. My progress.
WRITE ON.
