And this is an incredibly bad spot to pick back up again, but the muse never picks a good time. If the muse is involved in crises of confidence. I need to work my way through this somehow and writing has always been my tool.
I am so sure I can write most of the time that on some days it approaches, or probably appears to others to be, arrogance. As insecure a human being as I am, I find that amusing, but -- communicating via the written word is the one thing I can do. It's also the one thing I never put much weight on. It came so easily to me I was certain anyone could do it. I was assured over and over again that it wasn't true, that I had a valuable skill. I pursued it because nothing else worked for me.
But so very many people can and do write well. And so many of them write so much better than I do.
Mid-week, I went from "I know what I'm doing and I am good at it" to "I have no idea what even makes a story work or what people consider a story anymore. I'm not just a hack, I can't learn to become a better writer and I should just quit."
A swift hard fall from a certain height, with that stop at the end crushing my battered self-confidence and causing collateral damage to my heart. I hurt today in ways I had thought I'd conquered. And it's embarrassing. Back-of-hand-to-forehead, "Look at me, I'm an anguished writer!" melodrama-queen embarrassing.
That judgmental twit in my head is leaning back with a quirked eyebrow, saying, "Really? That's the best you can do?" Even my crisis of confidence isn't adequate.
Hating one's one work happens to every writer, they say. I'd thought myself semi-immune to that drama because I spent so many years hating everything about myself for other reasons. Surely this one thing was safe?
Apparently not.
I know enough to not wipe my hard drive, or burn my stories, or make anguished statements about how I'll never write again, although for awhile last night all of those things sounded like a good idea sure to be applauded by anybody who'd read any of my stuff. That too will pass.
So I'm already recovering a bit, and I know I'll come back to myself again. I also know it's probably an indication that I'm about to make a breakthrough of some sort, but that concept seems so far-fetched right now as to feel delusional.
Learning to move on is part of the learning curve, however, and this is about lessons that recur. And self-doubt and self-denigration are things that I certainly can expect to deal with from time to time.
Onward.
Incomplete reading list from Second Quarter 2013
Holy Diver by Gra´ Linnaea (Daily Science Fiction)
The Silver Witch by Tara Calaby (DSF)
Cradle Song by Brenda Cannon Kalt (DSF)
Where Memory Holds a Seat by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (DSF)
The Key to Everything by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (DSF)
An Exodus of Wings by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (DSF)
Ecdysis by Nicole Cipri (The Journal of Unlikely Entomology)
Spiders, Centipedes, & Holes by Cat Rambo (TJOUE)
The Space Between by Lew Andrada (TJOUE)
Silent Drops of Crimson and Gold Rain by Pam L. Wallace (TJOUE)
The Lonely Barricade at Dawn by Jesse William Olson (TJOUE)
Jeanette's Feast by Michelle Ann King (TJOUE)
B. By Nicola Belte (TJOUE)
Collateral Memory by Sabrina Vourvoulias (Strange Horizons)
Longfin's Daughters by O.J. Cade (Strange Horizons)
Mongoose by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (Clarkesworld)
Dead Men Walking by Paul McAuley (CW)
Free-Fall by Graham Templeton (CW)
This is Why We Jump by Jacob Clifton (CW)
The Urashima Effect by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld)
Baggage Check by Shay Darrach (Crossed Genres)
How the Jellyfish Got its Spine Back by Lucia Starkey (CG)
Second Skin by AJ Fitzwater (CG)
Where That Morning Sun Goes Down By Tim L. Williams (Ellery Queen)
The Locked House of Pythagoras by Soji Shimada (EQ)
Ghost Writer by Val McDermid (EQ)
The Road Les Traveled by Harley Mazuk (EQ)
Wild Justice by Sandi Ault (EQ)
Sugar by Steve Hockensmith (EQ)
A Case of Mis-Identity by Jennifer Reeve (EQ)
The Weight by Steve Hamilton (EQ)
The Lethal Leeteg by Hayford Peirce (EQ)
MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN by Joshua Foer (nonfiction)
The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link
The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link
Deborah Ross on connection and solitude
The View from the Top experiment and related stories
Living with the Gap by Eric M. Witchey
Mirages by Eric M. Witchey (Writer's Magazine)
The Bird Country by K.M. Ferebee, Shimmer mag
