Why Is Everybody Passing Me When I'm Speeding?

Yesterday morning I was running late to work so I hopped onto the toll road. As I was trying to get on, several cars sped around me as if I was crawling. When I looked at my speedometer, however, I was going 75 mph – in a 65 mph zone.


What the hell?

I hate that.

It reminds me, too, how I keep comparing myself to others even though I know I shouldn’t. I worry that I don’t write enough, that I don’t publish enough stories a year, that I don’t write longer stories, that my stories aren’t published with a bigger, more prestigious publisher.

Why do I put myself through that hell?

If I were sitting at home all day being lazy, maybe I could understand my feeling. But I don’t. Yesterday for instance was a really crazy day. First, my son hurt his ankle so I had to take him to the pediatrician. It had a bad sprain. I missed three hours of work.

While I was at the pediatrician’s office, I got a text from my older daughter that our cat was hurt, that her tail was cut and wouldn’t stop bleeding. When I took my son home for my daughter to watch, my daughter said the tail was hardly bleeding. I thought it would be okay, so I went back to work.

I was only back at work a couple of hours when I got wind that two of my staff were heating up a disagreement. Before I could deal with that my daughter called back frantic – the cat’s tail was still bleeding. So I called the vet who told me to bring the cat in right away. Again I left work early, ran home for the cat, took the cat to the doctor (not too bad thank God), then decided I should make up time at work, so dropped the cat and my daughters at home (the younger daughter had been at work with me so she could volunteer in our Mail Center).

Then I had to go to a late night MRI to check my knee – from 8-9 pm. That was scheduled during the couple hours I was back at work between the pediatrician and the animal hospital.

This was the ONE evening I had off from softball and volunteering at the softball field concession stand, to write, spend time with the kids, maybe go to the pumpkin patch, buy my daughter a pair of jeans she needs, etc. I really wanted to type in the rest of my story and work on it.

I was really stressing out. I couldn’t ask my husband to help because he had a very important appointment down in Miami he had to attend.

So although I’m moving as fast as I can, so fast I feel breathless, on the verge of a nervous breakdown and I’m not moving fast enough. My writing’s at a stand still. Everybody is passing me by.

Yes, I know I have to stop sometimes to live life and get ideas. But it also seems like so many people are passing me by. I wonder if I’m too busy that I should even try, that I should come home late at night and stay up late to write a blog post, or should I spend this bit of time writing stories.

I wonder how so many other people have time to write so much, to publish so many books, what I’m doing wrong that I can’t even begin to keep up. I wonder why I worry when I know I should only judge me against myself.

Recent posts you might like to read:

Why Writers Should Be Like Zombies 

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Welcome to the Spookiest Month of the Year (+ don't burn your Ouija Board!)

People Don't Fall Out of Trees - Without Reason 

I'm Part of a Tribe 

Big Brother Is Watching You - This Means You BLOGGERS!

Are You Writing Me Into Your Book?

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Must Write Must Write Must Write!!!

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook,
Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch,
Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape
are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Computer serial killer? Or nervous breakdown?

I claimed I was going to be more transparent about the writing process - for me, anyway. I'm pretty sure a lot of it is personal and therefor unique for every writer. Of course, lots of things are the same, too. Maybe I'm crazy to mention this, or maybe I'm just plain crazy, but I had a bit of a mental breakdown recently. It wasn't a complete breakdown about everything. I got very nervous about a particular edit. It seemed like it was doomed. You know how my family swears I'm a computer serial killer - as in I kill defenseless laptops. I swear it's not on purpose but I'm beginning to believe I'm the Bermuda Triangle of computers. I flubbed on an edit from a brand new editor and brand new company (for me). So I got an email paraphrased like this: "Why would you do this?!?" That freaked me out. Literally. I didn't mean to do anything wrong, but I obviously had missed some stuff. Why, I'm not sure. So I was given another month to fix and return the edit again. But I was totally spazzing out. I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown every time I went to work on it. I'd force myself to do it, and then, the Bermuda Triangle struck again. I had a lot of work done, and my computer died before I had a chance to save it to a thumb drive or send it to myself on AOL. I hated to redo all that work when I truly believed I'd get my computer back in a few days. But a few days kept dragging out. When it finally returned, the repair company had wiped out my Word program. My husband and my son thought this free similar program would be okay so they didn't have to pay a mint for Word again (the repair company should've replaced Word or so my hubby claimed but they wouldn't). So, I opened my file on this new similar program. I couldn't see the Track Changes. And it added junk. So now, I was really freaking out and I begged hubby and DS1 to get me real Word YESTERDAY! Unfortunately, they took a couple more weeks. Remember when I got pneumonia and I couldn't do anything except throw up and have cold sweats? Yep, that was in the middle of all this as well. I was so weak for a month I could barely sit up or read or do anything. Finally, I thought I could get back into this edit. I slaved over it all one day, determined to get it done and back to my editor even though I was in dire fear she'd say she no longer wanted the book and wanted nothing more to do with me. Guess what? Yep, the computer died again! This time the monitor burned out as I was editing, before I could save my redone edits to my thumb drive or email it to myself (I never did get those lousy characters out or get Track Changes back so I had to start from scratch anyway). That was another couple weeks to wait for the new monitor to come in the mail and then for DS1 to install it. So, a one month edit took me months. I'm usually not like that. I've returned edits in a day and usually in a week. To say 2009's been lousy and I've been under a ton of other stress that may have contributed is an understatement. But that shouldn't matter. I'm supposed to be a professional. Somehow I managed to stay professional and hold things together for the day job. But that drained me so much I was dying by the time I finally made it home. Still... However, even though I'm a professional writer, and even though I know excuses are lame, I am at the end of the day human. Sometimes I falter no matter how hard I try to hold things together. I wasn't going to mention this. There seems to be an unwritten code among writers: don't talk about royalties - how many books sold or $ - and don't talk about things like this. But that reminds me of another organization I was in that controlled people by telling them "Fake it 'til you make it" and never talk about what's really going on in your business lest you scare others away. That sending out that was insidious mind control - they didn't want their reps comparing notes and finding out everybody was getting screwed over so they could keep screwing them over. Honesty's good. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)