How do I even begin to a follow up my last post? I'm still in that constant state of WOW. And I sort of hope that never goes away...but then I do. The WOW feeling has made writing a little difficult. Because all of that self doubt begins to set in. Those feelings that say YOU WROTE ONE GOOD BOOK, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE A SECOND? It's a fear that every writer faces... I think. When I wrote SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY, I was at this huge point of frustration. I had really put my life on hold to write and I felt like I was going nowhere because my writing felt like it was going nowhere. So when I sat down to write SEMV, it was, like, this desperate frenzy. Which sounds really healthy, right? I don't know if it did anything for creating good writing habits, but it was really fucking therapeutic. Do you ever have that project that you dump everything into? The project that is all you. Every bit of you. That's what SEMV was for me. It was such a raw experience. So I had this all or nothing feel and now returning to that damn blinking cursor on my word doc is a little daunting, because a small part of me thinks, WHAT IF YOU REALLY DID GIVE EVERYTHING TO SEMV and WHAT IF YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE? Anyway, right now I'm trying to train myself to create good creative habits, while not being too reliant on any particular habits. Does that make sense?
So that's where I'm at right now. I know that revising SEMV is going to be just as intense as writing that first draft and I am so excited and scared and ready.
So how are you guys feeling? Any good writing habits to share? Any bad ones? Let me know in the box. We can share some popsicles and get over our self doubt, because it's really just some big time bullshit.
