Sick

[smokingboot]

Publishers and agents just scare me.

The problem is I love to write, but really don't like revealing my writing to anyone; part of this is fear of rejection, another is just, I don't know, something in me that doesn't like to show itself. That's ridiculous really, all writers want to be read. The invisible audience lures me; there's a security in it. If it doesn't like me I don't have to care, I will never see it. And if it loves me, I will feel good anyway.

Writing this lj has helped my shyness (no, really, I do have a shyness in me) as has the occasional jaunt on just_writing. It has built my confidence slightly; where I have expected a careless perhaps occasionally hostile audience, I have found only courtesy and support.

It's different when I write comics/roleplay games etc; That's fun but I don't really care too much. There's the craft and a few cute ideas, but not much else of me involved. But when I care, oh, then the tumble dryer in my gut gets going, and I suddenly want to just run away forever.

I am very tempted to try an experiment; My editing is not going well because I have been staring at the words in over-familiar format. If I put the novel up here, chapter by chapter, day by day, my perception of the readership would sharpen my focus and I would edit well. But two things work against me;

1) The first part of the book begins in a way that will translate on to lj well, for obvious reasons (i.e it started here). The second part runs together more, and is less likely to make sense in lj-friendly vignettes.

2) I don't think I can bear to do it.



Now I want to be back on the Lickey Hills, or walking by the sea, or anywhere far from this computer screen and this churning fear. Escape! Escape!