E-mail saved my life tonight

[desperance]

So, I have the revisions letter from my agent, about the new book. Which is not too grim at all. All revisions letters open with an obligatory cheer-you-up Good Bit; but when that Good Bit says "it remained gorgeous and fabulous and intricate right to the end", you know you're not in too much trouble.

Except that now I have to pay attention to the rest of it, where she wants more of this and less of that, and I worry of course about my ability to achieve same, because of course it is all and always one glorious bluff, that I only ever get away with by the skin of my ever-skinnier teeth; but hey, I've got a couple of weeks to achieve something bluffy. I can do that.

And I don't have to do it right-this-minute now. I can go downstairs, see what's on telly, see whether I'd rather come back up here and work on something else for a bit, just to remind myself that I am not a one-trick pony. Because one trick is never going to see me through, however well I do it.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

We have faith in you. Here in the icon is Ish being faith-promoting.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

We thank Ish for his faith. (He's actually quite scary, y'know? "You will believe." Um, yes, Ish...)

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Well, this is good news! Go you!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

He lives to motivate. And to shed.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. These might be the same thing, in a small cat-brain? Tho' come to think, I'm not quite sure how, given than shedding produces motivation to vacuum, which is probably not his plan...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

He motivates via the purr engine. We please him, he makes a nice noise...

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

It was such an eye-opener to learn that I was not the only writer that felt that way. It's a subset of Imposter Syndrome, and seems to be, if not universal, then widespread. We're in grand company!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. I remember my own wide-eyed moment, "You - you mean I am not the one who thinks 'OMG, I fooled them again!' every time, every goddam time...?"

Apparently not. God bless the internet, that tells people these things from the beginning, whereas we had to learn it awkwardly late...

[lagilman]

even the people who used to tell other writer-people "calm down, breathe, you can do this" suffer from it, too.

I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

remained gorgeous and fabulous and intricate

OF course you did. But what about the book?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Whereas I want more of this, and more of that too -

What's on telly tonight is something about the libraries of Timbuktu, which we are hoping will fit onto our hard drive, as I have other things to do.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Well, 'gorgeous and fabulous and intricate right to the end,' - sounds good to me.
:-)