Insecure Writers Support Group

Created by Alex J. Cavanaugh http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Hello, my name is Deb, and I'm an Insecure Writer with Overly-Confident Tendencies.

(Hi, Deb. lol)

I try to keep my arrogance-that-spirals-into-depressive-self-consciousness in my own crazy head, but since so many others do it, at least I know I'm not alone. I'm one of those nerds who has been writing since they could spell more than c-a-t (though, I could spell encyclopedia at 7, but that's beside the point), so I have always felt that it's not something I live to do but something I do to live. *cue violins*

I used to read a lot more than I do now, but I do read a lot more than I did during and just after college, because seriously, WHO wants to after so much reading?? Like most writers, I got inspiration from the books I read and tried to imitate until I came up with my own ideas. My friends knew me as the writer, and some couldn't wait to get their hands on the next installment of the mutant stories I wrote from the time I was 7 to the time I was 14 (I grew up on the X-men cartoons). So I felt like I could take my skills to the bank and that no one could tell me I wasn't good. Even when I got to college and had to sit through classes upon classes of workshops (Oh, God, I hated those) and had to listen to people tear apart my work with my tongue between my teeth, I knew without a doubt that they were wrong!

So needless to say some of them weren't, and whileI spent the past two years revising and editing my fantasy WIP that actually got me into college in the first place, I love it, and I live for it, but the fear is what if no one else does? Will people get it? Will an agent love my QUERY (God, a whole OTHER issue) enough to want to read my first 3 chapters, and will they love my first 3 chapters enough to want to read the others? Will they like how I introduced a new place, and will they like these characters I've worked on for almost *gasp* 10 years? AND if they all DO...can I come back and write something just as great? Or greater?! In less than 10 years (because seriously, that was too long)?

And no, I promise, I don't write my stories the way I just wrote all of that up there.

I want to be able to take my "This is the best thing since the last best thing" attitude and be able to back it up. I know the way to back it up is to do it well and believe that you did it well, but I'm human. I'm a panicky second-guessing human. AHHH!

Thanks for listening. @}-;--