Reality Check

All right.
I have given up.

No. Not on life, writing, or even this particular novel. No, I've just given up on the idea that "two more chapters is going to get it." Really. This is getting ridiculous.

I've been "two more chapter"-ing myself for two weeks, and have blown past my self-imposed deadlines now -- twice. Meanwhile, I keep putting things off until "two more chapters," and everything - including me - has suffered. When was the last time I got outside for a hike? Mac is a bit cranky and lonely, I've JUST NOW read the über exciting news that fellow-sufferer Eve of the DiscoM's has finished her revision, and that artist-turned-dancer-turned-AUTHOR, Devas T. has just been accepted for publication from Lee & Low. Great things are happening to people, people are discussing great books (by the way - this is a heads up to check out the interview with Laura Bowers on her Beauty Shop for Rent novel, which is also getting a lot of great buzz, and which I'm aching to read! And oh! Don't miss picking up Good Masters, Sweet Ladies when it comes out -- what an awesome resource for a classroom or just a great get-you-in-the-mood book to help you finish {ahem!} that medieval novel!), and I'm saying "two more chapters" and creating this weirdly anxiety producing state of must-finish-this-second.

So. I'm going to try and relax before my vitamins start talking to me, and we haul me to the Funny Farm where the pills really chatter. I get like this -- poor AF and poor Mac knows -- EVERY SINGLE TIME the end of the book is nigh and I feel like I'm not finding my way through it as fast as I should. At times like these, relationships go up in flames like dry tinder, and I'm just infuriated with everybody (READ: myself), and I have this awful sense of ...lack. That is, if I don't finish this, if I don't have this "out there" and being circulated and being worked on, if I'm not working on at least three manuscripts at once, then I'm not serious, I don't work hard enough, etc. ad nauseum, ad infinitum and ad schizophrenium. Not even my agent -- who did ask me about going over something when he got back from Bologna -- wants to hear from me right now, and I'm pretty sure we wore rather thin with each other the last time I was "almost done" with something. So. This is my reality check. This is my yoga breathing. This is me, trying for balance, promising myself that the world won't implode if I can't find the right words this minute to turn the tide of my story arc; that the sun will still rise if I let this go and read the paper tonight.

So, how have the rest of you all been whilst I've been happily spiraling into insanity?