Depression

Depression.

Work didn't kill it. Sweating in the garden (normally guaranteed to bludgeon any self-righteous snit out of existence) only made me more miserable. Cigarettes between actions (including the occasional clove) didn't made a dent. Even the mind-altering, euphoria-enducing effects of absinthe were not enough to shake it. Chocolate? Pffhht. A raindrop against a conflagration.

Of course, it doesn't help that the Secret Agent is only up to submission 14 and I'm #56. God. I'll wither of mental self-flagellation before then.

All I can see are the damning comments left by a raft of critiquers. (Not that I'm cursing them; quite the opposite.) Not a positive one in the bunch, I don't think.

I blame myself. Sure, I rewrote the opening AND the query, but I still haven't broken (obviously) whatever block it is that has so many readers deadset against going past the first paragraph, much less the first page. AND I made some ridiculously hideous rookie mistakes on the query itself. Gah. How can it look fine on the laptop and then so galling on the website?? Like flaunting daring lingere at a party only to wake the following morning to find one's soiled underpants swinging from the lampshade.

So, obviously, I am at that oppressive low of which so many inanely cheerful, PUBLISHED authors try to warn the yet uninitiated. What did I just read on one blog?

To quote: "Once you're in the publishing game, the insecurities don't stop. There's always someone with better reviews, more money, bigger tours, more fans, more sales, a cooler persona. There's always someone whose writing is so good, it makes you want to crawl in a hole and die."

Oh thanks. Thank you EVER SO FUCKING MUCH. And that makes me want to do this...WHY?

There are people out there like Patrick Rothfuss: brilliant, crafty wordsmiths ramming their heads against the steely walls of publishing for YEARS, only to be discovered through a fluke of fate, and yet...shlock like Harlequin doth go on. The Stephanie Meyers and Laurell K Hamiltons of the literary world bathe in accolades and movie contracts. And Joss Wheadon abandons Firefly to make...the Dollhouse.

But I still believe in the book. Even if I do not, currently, believe in my own ability to string more than two words together in a likeable manner, I DO still believe in JENNA'S SONG and what is, even now, battering at my head for release.

Muse, I curse thee.