Sold a story freak-out

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.