Now I shall talk about the negative.
The main thing is my self-esteem is on a major roller coaster. One minute I feel I've written a masterpiece. I have fantasies of my novel being turned into a movie. I imagine lots of money. We can travel. I'll get a ton of Twitter followers, and people will retweet every single ridiculous thing I write.
Okay, but then later in the day I begin to feel swamped by self-doubt. My novel's crap. No one will like it. I won't be able to sell it. I'll look like a fool trying to sell it.
What might be even worse is the worry that when I read the first draft (in a few weeks) I'll end up thinking it's crap.
When I wrote it, I thought it was brilliant. But you know...sometimes we can be delusional about things.
I dread trying to sell the novel, or even trying to get people to read it.
I dread getting rejected.
I dread getting low scores and ratings.
I dread criticism.
What I hate most about all of it is I love books so much. Reading is my solace.
But when I get into the I'm-a-writer-too mode, I lose some of that.
Books begin to have a negative connotation. They remind me of my own failures. I become envious of the authors who are successful. I begin to hate publishing companies.
I just thought of an analogy that might work.
It's kind of like the feeling of trying to date your best friend. If things go right, it can be wonderful. You can end up marrying your best friend and there you found your soulmate. What marriage can be better than one between two best friends? But if the romance doesn't work, you haven't just lost a lover, but also your friend.
The good news is I've been through all the shit before, and my bad feelings toward books faded away.
And I've also vowed that this time, I'm not going to give up. I'm going to work my butt off to sell this novel, and if that doesn't work, write another novel. And then another novel and another novel.
So instead of saying It didn't work for me, I can say it hasn't YET worked for me. I think there's a difference.
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