I have, over the last 15 months, alone and with help, removed pretty much all of my “I’m not writing because…” statements. Removed them to such a point that, for the past week, it is easier for me to write (even when exhausted or overworked or whatever) than it is to make excuses. I am not even afraid of NaNoWriMo.
Sort of.
I discovered yesterday that I am in the grip of a peculiar horror. I am deeply, deeply afraid of December 1. In December I will have a finished draft of one novel, and half of another novel in my hands with thirty easy days of writing left to do. When I succeed at NNWM (for such is my mindset, these days, that I can say “when” in a matter-of-fact way) I will have dispensed with even pretending that I can stall.
Two. Drafts. And rewriting takes me less time than writing.
The future is upon me. It looms, a shadowed figure in my doorway, holding gifts in its clawed hands that I dare not name nor look upon, for fear that I lose everything that I have known in my life and be swept away by that horror that I can only call “Happiness”.
And, no shit, kiddies, this is frightening.
I know how to be frustrated. I know how to be overburdened and put upon and unfulfilled. I know all there is about sacrificing dreams on alters so diminutive one must annex them to hold the shed blood. I have limited experience in exploring my dreams productively.
What if I have to take joy in my daily work?
What then?
I expressed some of this to Shannon, and told her it was Pre Novel Syndrome. I should be better once I’m in rewrites, once I’m moving forward from this threshhold.
“PNS? You have PNS? Well I wish you’d just bleed it out and get it over with.” She was utterly failing not to laugh at my fears.
I glowered. “But it cramps.”
She kissed my forehead. “We’ll buy you a heating pad.”
Crossposted from Epinepherine & Sophistry