On stage fright-
I wiggled my way into the YA Lit Chat charity anthology titled Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes. The cover will be revealed sometime soon on The Story Siren’s site. I picked a rhyme (Ring Around the Rosy) and wrote about 3,000 words on a story that will be between 5,000 to 7,000 words long. I left it and concentrated on Mika and my goal of landing an agent. I was on a self imposed deadline. Just now I went back to my story and read through it. All of a sudden I hate it. I want to print it out and tear it to shreds and have a little cry, but I don’t know why. The story is sound, its a good myth and a good rhyme. I’m beginning to think I have stage fright. This will be my first work that appears with authors that I actually consider myself a fan of their work. What if mine sucks in comparison? What if I turn it in and the editing author takes a look at it and scoffs “Noob” at me? What if they know I am not good enough?
The thing is, I am not normally self conscious. I walk into any situation and own it. I am confident and I know I can do things, so why does this bug me so much? I think I am going to take a week and think about my story and finish the rewrites on chapter two of Mika. I think this anthology story can be stronger. I may even use an outline *Le Gasp*.
Here is a list of the contributors. So you can undersand my woe is me fatalistic pity party.
Contributors include:
Cyn Balog
Nina Berry
Sarwat Chadda
Leah Cypess
Shannon Delany
Debra Driza
Leigh Fallon
Angie Frazier
Heidi R. Kling
Nancy Holder
Suzanne Lazear
Karen Mahoney
Lisa Mantchev
C. Lee McKenzie
Georgia McBride
Gretchen McNeil
Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg
KM Walton
Suzanne Young
Michelle Zink
Jessie Harrell
UNPUBLISHED winner of contest to be announced May 2012!
By: Marni Bates (@MarniBates)
All of those writers were originally right where you are. Crap. I lied. All of those writers are *exactly* where you are! Getting your work published is an astonishingly wonderful thing…that is often accompanied by nausea. And the idea that once you are published it’ll go away, just isn’t true. I still have 5am freak outs when I’m convinced I’ll never be as good of a writer as (insert kickass author’s names here). I still panic that nobody will like my new stuff and that it’ll be panned by critics. But all of that’s normal.
So hang in there!
By: Nina Berry (@Ninaberry)
Oh Pam, I am so in the same boat with this anthology. I have my idea and my tone planned out, but I picked a more obscure rhyme (Taffy Was a Thief) that has a super cool mythological basis – but I’m terrified no one will give a hoot, and that the other stories will be much more awesome and… AAAAAH.
But heck, I’ve felt that way about everything I’ve ever written at some point. As I’m sure you know, you just gotta slog through that feeling until it fades a bit and keep writing.
Easier said than done, but that’s one of the many reasons writing is fricking HARD.