The End

Last Wednesday, I finished what had been my wip for several months. If you haven't finished yet, keep going! You will! =) If you have, you probably know the weird mix of feelings I experienced. I was relieved and excited, because I'd been working towards that goal and met it. I was also scared, because what if it wasn't as good as I hoped? What if it was, in fact, the worst thing ever written in the history of language?

I'm still stuck somewhere between the two extremes, waiting for my husband to read it and let me know what he thinks (it's SO HANDY to have someone to read all the way through when you're done and let you know if they liked it, and let you know if you accidentally changed your main character's eye color three or four times...). I love that he does this for me, but it makes me soooo nervous. What if he reads it and then tells me he wants that two hours of his life back? (Haha, hopefully not going to happen, but you just never know......)

I think my point is that we're all in different stages of our writing lives. But from my experience so far, every stage comes with insecurities. I don't think any writer, any artist for that matter, ever just wakes up one day and isn't afraid of criticism. It's something we need to learn to deal with, but it makes us better. Honest.

So y'all are all doing fabulous jobs of putting yourselves out there to one degree or another (like with those writing prompts in response to Betsy's post--awesome job!) but is there anything else you can do that you've been letting fear hold you back from? Is there a critique group you've thought of joining, but you're worried about how you'll handle the feedback? Is it that you've been wanting to read someone a paragraph you've written, just to get their thoughts, but you feel self-conscious? Step outside of your comfort zone sometime this week and do something you've been meaning to do to advance with your writing. The insecurity doesn't ever go away, I don't think, you just learn to get past it and not let it keep you stuck. =)