I Can Do This

So, I was writing again, for a day or two there, and feeling good about myself. I met with a friend at Panera a few weeks ago and told her I hadn't written a thing since NaNoWriMo, and she basically said, "Well, it's a good thing you're here today." I was like, yeah.

I said it was just so terrifying to get started again, and by that I meant all the effort involved, and me not knowing exactly how to write the thing anyway, and revising would take SO LONG, and probably I should be researching, but I didn't know where to begin, and I couldn't start writing now because I had wasted the last few months, and if I were really serious about writing I wouldn't have wasted that time, so I guess as a way to punish myself, I would never write again. (?) Yeah. Just the same old excuses. Just all those self-doubts and me being hard on myself and self-sabotaging.

Well, but that afternoon I opened the novel I'd written during NaNoWriMo and began revising, and ... it was not the hardest thing in the world! I sort of knew what I was doing, and for the most part I could trust my editing instincts. I felt really good about myself and decided, though, that instead of revising my 2005/2008 NaNo novel, I would revise the YA novel I wrote in college, because that novel is more complete. Plus, I still feel good about it, and I care about it, and it seems YA is a pretty hot market right now (even though my novel, so far, has no sex, drugs, or vampires in it).

So I revised on a Sunday and I revised on a Monday, and then I didn't do any writing-related activities till the following Sunday. But my friend was supportive and said, "Great! You wrote one day last week, now this week, just bring it up to two days." I revised (I keep wanting to say "revosed") that afternoon at Panera and felt awesome again, and then proceeded to self-sabotage for the next week, bringing me to today, where the only writing activity I'm doing is this blog. Which, I guess that's okay.

Why did I self-sabotage again last week? My goal, for now, is just to write 10 minutes a day. That is such a doable goal. But it's like I purposefully don't write just so that I can wallow in my own disappointment. And then the fears come back, and I think that I have no idea what I'm doing, and revising will take forever, and what if in the middle of looking at my novel again I won't know in which direction to go, and at this rate I'll never write my first query letter and never get published and, and, and...

I guess I have a habit of worrying about things that may never be.

Today I read a lot of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and that made me excited about writing again. Then tonight at Barnes & Noble I read the first story in the current issue of Glimmer Train (Stephanie Dickinson's "A Hole in the Soup"), and it was so good. I started it skeptically, thinking this isn't the kind of story I normally read, but it drew me in, and the writing was so good and the imagery and emotions so vivid I almost cried a few times. And I thought, "Now I understand why Glimmer Train didn't accept my short story last summer," but I also thought, "I can do this! I love writing like this author loves writing, and I can get to this point if I work at it and practice and stop being so scared."

If writing is a craft, then it makes sense that I will have to work at it day by day and get better over time. It is not an instant gratification thing. Writing and revising are activities to be done every day (if I can help it--NOT sabotage it) because I love writing and stories and perfect sentences. I can do this.