(no subject)

[nonionay]

I feel strangely weary. I don't feel the rushing stress that comes with having too much to do, but rather, the rushing is close beneath the fabric of my reality, threatening me covertly. The fact that craziness is infecting the lives of nearly everyone I know and work with makes it better -- there's been a lot of mistakes at work on my part, but everyone else is messing up too, or simply finding themselves subject to the whims of fickle machinery.
My room is clean, and that helps me -- I am calm and incredibly comfortable sitting in a foldable chair with my grandma's footstool beneath my heels. Cataloging my library helps too, though I've no idea what I'll do when I'm done besides amuse myself by ordering everything per the Library of Congress cataloging system.

I keep hoping this quiet chaos will end, so I can get on with my writing. And that's what it really comes down to. My security at work was shaken at the same moment as my confidence as a writer was shaken. I expected to be rejected, of course, but now the reality has arrived. After giving her a brief summary of my six-book arc, Honna Swenson gave me the friendly caution that I might want to do something more commercial before embarked on a complex epic. I'm hoping that The Knife's Edge will be simple enough to get my foot in the door, but what if it's not? The truth is, my world is too big for me to contain within the enormous grasp of my intuition. It's escaping my control, and it terrifies me that it may be a hulking behemoth I'll never be able to tame. I've been letting myself zoom outwards to see where the storylines are going and where they connect and need to be foreshadowed. Now I've gone to far. I need to zoom back in and make myself write one scene at a time, without worrying where it's going.

I know I'm at a point right now where I need to read and get non-writing things done. I need to let myself relax and let my world slip through my fingers. I have trouble letting a story stay small, but part of me wants to start on something completely different -- not in the Big World at all. I've got the Blood Rose Devouring, but I don't want to do erotica or urban fantasy again for a while. And yes, I'm terrified that the Blood Rose will get rejected. I'm really confident about it, and have shamefully built my expectations up to a point that I'll get hurt if/when they topple. But I've needed a good dose of humility.

I'm at a point where I'm assuming my future consists of being a published writer. I have to remind myself that I have a lifetime to get there, and even if I don't, I still love writing for its own sake, and for my own amusement. But it's annoying to put so much energy into something fruitlessly. I guess I have to remind myself that nothing is fruitless. I'm not sure where else I'd direct my energy, though. Travel, I suppose, and maybe back into my art. I'd like to be able to make money off my passions, and for some reason, I'd rather be a struggling writer than a struggling artist. Maybe because as a writer, my audience is apparant. But I don't know many people who buy art.

fenmere pointed out that it's Mercury Retrograde, but that started yesterday, and this started last week. However, there is a regular Saturn Circus going on right now, with all the planets on the opposite side of the sky from it. I don't really want to believe in the influence of the stars, but it's a comforting thought when the mind is in chaos. Though I'm loathe to think this will all last until Mercury goes direct in March. :-P

In the meantime, I'll let myself stretch out in my beautiful, comfy room and attempt to read as many of my unread books as possible.
I know what's bugging me. It's like Christmas. I'm calm, but holding back the storm. I'm afraid I'll let something slip by in the night just like then. I don't have the power to escape this dream, I can only throw up walls to protect myself until I can come home.

Comments

[pussinboots.livejournal.com]

Whenever your journal gets introspective, I feel like I get smarter just by reading it.

[criada.livejournal.com]

Glad I'm giving you something good. Tomorrow I'm going to be a big whinefest.

[kaerfel.livejournal.com]

I totally hear you on the rejection thing. No matter how many times I tell myself my stuff is probably crap, no one's going to want it, and even if they should want it, they're not going to see that, everyone gets rejected, etc.--no matter how many times I try to set myself up for accepting the inevitable, it's always a huge shock when that thin envelope shows up in the mailbox. I can tell as soon as I pick it up now whether it's a rejection or not--I don't even have to open it. (Form rejections are thin and white--personal rejections and requests are thick and off-white, printed on good office stationary.)

Of course I write because I love writing, but it's the hoping and the putting other things aside to do the writing that's starting to bother me. I always believed I'd get published someday--others failed, but I'd be the exception--but now, even if my writing is getting better, it feels like I shouldn't put it above my Latin homework. I should be more realistic and prepare for a "normal" future, one where I won't be getting by on any sort of creative skill.

Being a storyteller, of course, I hope that something will rescue me, and that this bleakness is just some lesson I need to learn, some kind of darkest before the dawn thing, before what I always believed was my destiny will kick back in and be like, "Oh, yeah, I remember you. Let's see... you're supposed to get your big break right about... now!"

Though there are plenty of big time authors who got tons of rejection on what are now famous books. And I read that J. K. Rowling's agent was a bit leery when he'd just signed on the first book and she told him she wanted to do seven of them.

I wish I was at a place where knowing my writing is good was enough for me, but I've programmed myself too much to think that I won't count for anything until I'm published.

Anyway, I will commiserate with you tomorrow.

[kehrli.livejournal.com]

:( I wish I had something helpful to say.

[criada.livejournal.com]

It's all right, I don't need anything, just writing this was helpful. I know you care. :-)