Saying stuff out loud so maybe I can actually do it

So in the interest of observing (ha!), I have been observing myself having a pity party the past four days or so.

I do have a tendency to feel sorry for myself, because let's face it, that's an easy thing to do. It's quick, it's doesn't cost any money, I can do it anytime anywhere. It's portable, tasteless, and doesn't induce allergies in myself or anyone else, and I can do it in public without anyone being the wiser. In fact, I've become very adept at making myself look like I'm not doing it even when I am. The problem is the cost in my confidence and my forward motion.

I'm figuring out it costs me everything.

Now, mind you, feeling sorry for myself is a normal response to disappointment, setbacks, fear and anxiety, bizarre encounters with people that I haven't made sense of yet (I'm having quite a few of those lately). I used to think all self-pity sessions were wrong, but I don't necessarily think they are anymore. I think it's something I need to keep in perspective and manage in moderation. Basically, this:

If my life is not stable and enjoyable the way it is right now, then I am allowed and really should have the good, solid cry I need to, lean on the safe shoulders I need to lean on, let people support and love me – but I don’t don’t don’t get to wallow in it. When the tears slow down, I need to get up and do something about it. I need to make a plan, even if that plan is halting and ill-informed at first. I can always modify it. But FFS stop feeling sorry for myself already, and then punishing everyone else when they don’t act like me and thus threaten my lazy system.

In practical terms, I need to own my terror of other writers, and then go out and encounter them anyway. I need to own my fear of failure, and then edit the manuscript anyway. I need to own that I loathe doing the laundry and then STFU and GBTW.

All of this is patently obvious, isn't it? Why do I keep going on about it? I keep going on about it, and I know it. I sincerely want this to be the last time I do it. I'm done. I may talk in the future about how dealing with other, more established writers puts the fear of God in me -- and it does! -- but enough already with the "Poor, poor me, I just can't do (fill in the blank)!" I'm getting on my own damned nerves.

So...writing plans. I have not one, but two Christmas stories rolling around in my head, and I think I really will start plotting those out while I work over the novel's manuscript. Nothing big, of course, just noddling with the ideas. The manuscript has rather large plotting issues itself, and that will take a lot of my time. I'm trying to decide whether it makes more sense to actually send the thing over to Kinko's to print, or just do it onscreen. I'll probably opt for onscreen just because printing a whole ream of paper's worth of manuscript is going to cost a small fortune. My plan is to just read the story, and make some notes to myself about problems I encounter, so I get a good feel for what needs work.

You know the thing is, I was going to say I didn't know if this was the right way to do it, and then I realized that, like most creative things, there isn't necessarily a right way. This isn't engineering, after all. That's a field with definite right and wrong procedures. This is art, and I can do it the best way I know how, and the universe will not grind to a halt. So there.