Today I Feel…Idiotic

[lilithsaintcrow]

First of all, Deadline Dame Rinda has a hilarious post up about the Waiting Writer In Her Natural Habitat. You can also win a coffee mug and coaster, so pop over and share some commenting love. Also, if you’ve contacted me through Myspace or through my website for an ARC of Strange Angels, rest assured that I’ve passed your contact info on to Razorbill.

As for me, well, this morning I feel like an idiot.

This is a common occurrence. I feel like a dolt almost every day of my life. The instant I start feeling smart, the Universe whaps me upside the head with something I never even dreamed of. So I spend most of my time pretty happily considering myself an idiot.

For example, take the kitchen timers. I have timers scattered all over the house. They’re used for the kids’ schoolwork, for mouthwash (don’t ask), for writing, for cooking, for shovelgloving, and just recently (like today) for telling myself to get up every twenty minutes and stretch so that stiffness in my lower back doesn’t turn into full-blown-walking-like-Quasimodo. Left to my own devices I would probably write pretty much all day, only stopping when the need to visit the loo was intense or when I am almost faint and have a headache from hunger.

This is not good for me. Hence, the timers.

No, I am not obsessive-compulsive. I just use times so much that having one or two in every room except the bedrooms is…

Oh, God. Maybe I AM a little obsessive. (At least I am not a goat held on suspicion of armed robbery, though. It’s the little things that should make one grateful.)

I’m just a little forgetful, that’s all. The timers help to hold me to a particular task for a period of time, or remind me, like I said, to get up and stretch. I’ve reached the point in working out and getting fit where I NEED to stretch. The muscles are unhappy; my posture and the way I hold myself are both changing. The shoulder-hunching and slouching has GOT to go. So, getting up and stretching every twenty minutes is necessary.

I just feel like a moron because I can’t remember to get up every twenty minutes without the timer. I can’t keep track of time on a clock–I get INTO what I’m doing, no matter what it is, and the clock begins to fade in importance with each passing moment. I consider it a miracle that I am ready for dinner each day (but this only happens because I start fretting about it around noon). I also feel faintly ashamed of admitting my firm belief that a kitchen timer is one of God’s gifts to writers, for reasons I’ve already stated.

I’m also feeling like a dip today because I’ve gotten two very nice responses–one from short story editors on an anthology, and one from my editor at Razorbill. But I worry and obsess so much over every piece of work–will the editor like it? Oh God. They won’t like it and they’ll take the advance back and then we’ll starrrrrve and the sun will go out and everyone will hate me because it’s all my FAULT…

When I hear people are considering writing for a living my first instinct is to laugh nervously. Because the rejection and the worry are both soul-wracking. The early rejections make a writer almost pathetically grateful for any sign of approval, and most of us don’t need any help when it comes to the seeking-approval thing. (It is only natural and human to want approval, after all. It seems like one of humanity’s biggest needs.) Then fierce performance anxiety kicks in, at least for me.

So both nice responses were a huge relief, and I’m sure both sets of editors think I’m an idiot for worrying so damn much. My emails are full of caveats and “you might not like“s and “tell me where this is broken but tell me one good thing about it first, please God“s.

See? I am a total spaz today, and probably not doing much better in this blog post. I’m going to blame the lingering soreness and mucus from the flu (and THAT was a doozy, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many dehydration headaches in a 72-hour period) and give myself a day off.

The way I’m feeling, it can’t hurt.

Posted from A Fire of Reason. Please comment there.