Great googly moogly have I got a story for you. I was walking off the bus yesterday and as the man in the aisle across from me stood up I noticed that there was a gigantic spider hanging out on his leg. Yes I am a writer, mostly Irish, and have a tendency to make my stories quite colorful — but I am not kidding! I watched in horror (can you say arachnophobe?!) as he walked in front of me towards the pay station and the spider walked along with him. Slowly creeping up towards the opening between his pants and his shirt. I was frozen in fear. I couldn’t warn the guy. My over-active imagination immediately warned me against it, showing me images of the guy doing the “I have a bug on me” dance and that crazy huge spider somehow finding its way on me. The shivers I have right now just thinking about that is crazy.

You know what? Sometimes I get the same heebie jeebies as I approach my manuscript. I think, “How in the hell can anyone think any of this rubbish is worth publishing?” I think all writers enter this seventh stage of hell filled with anxiety and self-doubt. Almost every text on writing contains some mention of it. So I am normal right?!?!

I recently picked up one of the writing texts I have called Page After Page (Discover the Confidence & Passion You Need to Start Writing & Keep Writing). The starting isn’t the problem anymore, that’s for sure. In this book there is a chapter titled “Anxiety” which starts off saying, “Writers are people who are comfortable with intense contradictions.” Apparently writers believe they are “brilliant” and “shit” at the same time. Or as the book says, “Brilliant Shit.” The writer in me likes to point out that the acronym for that is still “B.S.”

In any event, we all have our good days and not so good days. I’ll let this one and the next one slide and hope that there are some better ones to come. My beta reader is itching to see the next installment, and even if I am only writing for her, she is the best fan a gal could ever have. 🙂

photo credit: Johnny Grim via photo pin cc