Ramblings

I posted it on my other blog. I may have said a bit about it on Facebook or Twitter. I'm pretty sure I mentioned it on Tumblr. I've been depressed over the last month. As a result of that, I have been sorely tempted to give up writing. I feel as though I'm just no good and that I'm not a 'real' author because I don't have a book contract or an agent. I've been forcing myself to write in my therapy journals and I've been trying to keep up with my daily journal. It's been hard. Even the short form entry in my daily planner where I summarize my day in a few lines have been difficult to write.

I sat down and looked at things seriously today. I realized that I needed to be more realistic in my writing expectations. I can't expect myself to be at production levels all the time. No one is a writing machine. I can't expect myself to be at the same level as authors like Neil Gaiman, who is well established in the industry and still has a hard time pitching novels. I also need to stop trying to expect myself to write in every genre to find my audience. Some genres I'm just not that strong in and I have to accept that. I am, for example, not an author of children's books.

I suppose I'm having something of a midlife crisis. I've been struggling to write the blurb for book four of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar for the last three months. I've been struggling to finish book seven of the same series for the last year. It has me questioning if I still have the energy to write this series. It has me questioning everything about my writing. I haven't given up but I have been very tempted to do it.

I realize the reason why these self-defeating and self-denying thoughts have been coming up are because scumbag brain is the repository of all the lies that were told to me as I was growing up. And in those lies, I was told that I couldn't do this. I was told that there was no way I'd be successful. And that success meant a big fat paycheck and lots of book sales. That success was supposed to be their retirement because once they figured out that I actually could write a novel at seventeen, they suddenly were onboard and trying to control what I was doing.

Lots of old programming has been hitting me hard over the last month. I didn't really comprehend it until last night when I wrote an 'eviction notice' to the haters living rent free in my head. Writing that flipped some kind of switch. Now, the words are flowing. I have no idea what direction they're going in. I don't know if this means that the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar is going to be on hold for a while. I hope not. I have six and a half books that I want to release into the wild. But, right now, I'm going to do my best to just write what I have and let the gods sort it out.