7:00 Revision Musing (AKA Revision of Love)

I am deep in the murky mire of revising The Tech Quartet, my children's superhero novel. Meanwhile, the world seems just a little bit to be crumbling around me. I keep getting distracted by new ideas, the aforementioned crumbling, sometimes my little brother... This post is a witness to my distraction - if I were actually focused on my revision right now, I wouldn't be writing this. I just need to vent my frustration in some coherent form, and if that means writing whatever pops into my head, furiously pounding it out as if my computer keyboard is entirely to blame for the existence of coronavirus and powdered eggs, then sharing it with the world here even though no one wants to read it, then that's fine by me. I wrote down all sorts of random facts about my characters, downloaded a New York VR app to get a feel for the land, yet I still can't shake this funk. Tonight, I should probably prohibit myself from watching TV until I get some more revising done, but come on! I could be watching episodes of The West Wing that I've never seen, or episodes of Alias that I watched two months ago (yes, that sounds a little nuts, but it's really good). I'm a little sick of my own confused and oversimplified plotting. Not sick of my characters, though - ah, I could never be sick of those kids. They stopped feeling like just my own creations a long time ago, but now they almost feel real.

Now, I think I'm just scared. I'm scared of these people, these incredible people that somehow sprang out of my own subpar imagination, being more real than my reality. I'm scared of my story not doing them justice. I'm scared of bringing what I've made into the world. And that's not even bringing up that I'm scared of the coronavirus, four more years of Donald Trump, etc. I guess nothing distracts like fear. I'm not sure how I apply the tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy to this ... this completion anxiety, though, because it seems to be more of an all-or-nothing deal. Either I finish my first novel, or I don't. That's just it.

Ah, and now, for the first time, I've written myself OUT of a corner instead of into one. That's just the push I need. If it's so hard not to focus on fear, I just need to realize that I should be far more scared of never finishing than I should of not finishing well enough. That will keep me focused on finishing. If anyone is actually reading this, I hope you, too, feel inspired. Behold, the anxious procrastinator's golden new solution: redirect your anxiety into NOT procrastinating!

Wait, did that make sense? I don't think that made sense. Darn, I thought I had something!