Tuesday, December 20, 2011

...in which we second-guess ourselves

Now that the initial hectic preparation is over for my descent into the beautiful madness of ePublishing - getting a blog, a twitter, polishing up my first offerings, planning what I'll be publishing at later dates, etc - I've managed to stop and think for a second about one important question.

Am I sure I want to do this?

There have been nagging little voices all through the process, but I found it easy to ignore them due to the sheer pace. I was too damn busy for reflection. Now that I have to wait on a few things, I have the opportunity for some good, deep self-doubt. C'mon, you think the work is really that good? If this is the first stuff the public sees from you, your career is DOP! (Dead on Publication). Are you sure those 'free' stories you're planning to offer will entice readers?

To that last question - well, no. I'm not. The story I'm putting up for sale is easily the best short work I've ever done, but the other stuff - I think it's good enough. And I go back an forth on my own work enough (as I'm sure most writers do) that I can only trust the average of what I think, and what others think.

Self-Doubt is losing to good old fashioned impatience, though. I want to put myself out there. I'm tough enough to take the backlash, if it comes.

Edit: It occurred to me that in this business 'backlash' takes the form of 'deafening silence.'

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