I got comments back from one reader who liked the first chapter of Raven’s White Hart. Hallelujah and what a sense of relief.

Now on to chapter two

As long as I can resist the various distraction devices and projects, that is.

Oh dear…. I knew I was having issues showing my baby to anyone else and decided I should try to get over it by sending the first chapter to two people who read and like the same sort of books I do – one of them is a test reader for some of my favorite authors (Hi Erin)….

I decided to do it and just “get over it”. Instead of calming down once I’d sent the damned thing out, I’m scared to DEATH! Amazingly so! Appallingly so! What the heck?

It’s not like it’s the end of the world. It’s not like things that are wrong aren’t fixable. But I seem terrified in total disproportion to what is actually at stake.

You know what this tells me? This tells me that despite my attempts to reassure myself, despite the fact I have a perfectly good day job and technical publishing contract, I care. I really do want to do this to the point that it matters more deeply to me than I thought it would.

I guess I’d hope that it would get better over time and the fact this is my first baby is making it so bad but I’m not convincing even myself. I would ask for reassurance from folks that had been there that this stops but I think I know better.

So consider this my whiney post of the day and we’ll see what my two readers have to say. And I’ll keep a nice bucket nearby when I hear from them just in case my terror turns to throwing up.

As I promised myself, I started writing the new story last night. I got about 800 words in the hour I worked on it which isn’t too bad and tonight I reread that section (broke with my plan and changed a few things) and am continuing on.

Woot – now to just keep at it!

Okay, on Tuesday night I got all the scene cards for Raven’s White Hart into order and tonight it’s time to start actually writing.

We’ll see if I can manage to keep making progress without rereading, rereading and rereading what I have already written and fiddling endlessly with it instead of writing new sections. :)

So – into the fray!

For some reason when I manage to get enough sleep I can actually think in the morning! Well, thoughts other than “where can I stop for coffee” and “I wonder if the barrista will be appalled if I ask for a quad mocha?”

Today I was driving to work and my mind was wandering off on odd tangents. During all this I got a great idea for a paranormal comedy series and, having planted pens and 3×5 cards in just about every room and car I have, I was able to write down the idea and any points I’d thought of while stopped at a light. I tossed the card in my purse and when I got home today, i was able to add it to the “Ideas” pile.

It was actually incredibly freeing to be able to just scrawl the idea down and let it go so I could actually get work done at my day job…. And it was great to NOT be fighting to keep some sort of method going that doesn’t work with my personality or life.

Yeehah!