Sometimes I get anxious about writing for an ‘audience’. Usually when I’m experiencing a blue mood, the beginnings of a dip or depression. I get fretful about my writing being seen (for someone who wants, very desperately, to be a writer, this is obviously an obstacle I need to surmount at some point). I tell myself that my prose is shabby and self-indulgent, my thoughts dull…and who do I think I am, anyway, thinking that anyone would even be interested in what I have to say?
I think all writers experience an element of this dread and self-doubt. Sometimes I am able to deal with it quite capably, and write through my fear and misgivings. Other times, my lack of faith is crippling – these last few weeks have been a prime example of the latter.
It didn’t help that I was unsure of my employment situation (I had to re-apply for own job due to an internal restructure) and for a time, it looked likely that I would be made redundant right around Christmas (thankfully, I was offered the job, so that’s one less thing to worry about). It also didn’t help that I was super-stressed about my trip to Paris with The Sister – I was worried about spending a prolonged period of time, just the two of us, in close proximity, as she tends to be spiky and snappy, and I am hypersensitive at the best of times. (Thankfully, that worked out okay, too – god bless Paris in December for being so beautiful that it’s impossible to be negative). It’s just felt like an ever-accumulating mountain of stresses, and my writing reflected that – I felt like I’d be inflicting my whining on people if I shared my writing, so I simply kept it to myself.
Now I’m coming out of the other side of the dip, I can see that that was the very time I should have been frequently posting – working my issues through and receiving feedback and support from this lovely little community. Will someone please remind me of this if I disappear again at some future juncture? I sometimes need a little nudge J
One good thing – the book I have been trying to write this last year, and which until now has been little more than a gradual amassing of scribblings, musings and turns of phrase, has finally begun to assume a real shape. I’m still a long way from being finished, but to have a coherent thread is such an amazing feeling. And I’m not riding the wave of some temporary momentum, either – it’s been slow but consistent for the last few months, and for the first time, I can actually envision it as complete at some point rather than a forever-ongoing pet project. Which makes me very, very, very happy.
On a related note: I know there are a lot of other writers out there in this blog community…do any of you have any experience with publishers? Or the publishing process? What about self-publishing? I know that the latter used to be seen as a sort of vanity thing, but I’m wondering whether that’s changing now with the huge successes of initially self-published fiction like the Fifty Shades series, and the Amanda Hocking books. Thoughts?
Looking forward to writing in the coffee-house tomorrow, followed by Christmas films and mulled wine in the evening with my friend Sarah, and then lunch with an old friend I don’t see very often on Sunday. It also hit me this morning that it’s Christmas in a little over two weeks, so I shall be festooning the house with glitter and fairylights at some point, too!.
How about you? xxx
