I just fucking write. That's what I do.

I must be plotting to die at 80 on some level. I'm almost 40 and this year seems to be my year for low self esteem, extreme swings of self doubt and more than my fair share of self loathing. Hmph.

For about 48 hours I've been licking imaginary wounds and trying to nurse myself through an extreme case of I-suck-as-a-writer-itis. Don't get me wrong, I got that as a newbie too, but the bouts had more of a rat in a cage feel to them and were shorter lived and usually came on the tail of an acceptance and I'd think oh shit! What if it was a fluke! In fact if you go to my old blog, Smut Girl, and do a search for cave dweller you just might find some. Now the periods are not as frequent but they are of much heavier fare. Sort of a leaden discontent and fear that bounces around like the world's heaviest ping pong ball, ricocheting off my bones and filling me with the very scary urge to lie down in the middle of the floor and refuse to ever write again.

Melodramatic, yes? Boy howdy, do I know it. But much like you can't choose who you love, you can't choose these moments of writer's malaise (that's what I've come to call it, at least in my head).

So, what's a girl to do?

Drink

Write one of your best stories ever in a single sitting, submit it and then turn around and be convinced you suck again.

Read some stellar smut that must makes you happy by a person that you LOLove

Watch Roseanne on TV Land

Just fucking surrender to the feeling

Ride your exercise bike until you hootle goes numb

Avoid FB and Twitter for large chunks of time because the devil invented them and sometimes they can make you feel worse instead of better and then you feel like a whiner

Threaten to never write anything but messages in birthday cards again

Buy $100 worth of workout clothes online because exercise is one of the few things that makes you really happy at the mo.

Write zombies

Read Carl Hiaasen and giggle.

Write more zombies

Proof your crime book (written as yourself) and hope it does not suck and absolutely do not let yourself realize that you wrote it because you might just give up the ghost and delete the whole thing and who knows it might actually be good when you come out of this funk and…*gasp*

Run errands, laugh with your kids and watch some show called Sons of Guns with the man (crush hard big-time on the big tattooed, bald, gun toting good ole' boys)

Write more zombies.

A lot of writing for someone suffering writing malaise, yes? Well. It is my job and there is the lesson, no matter how I feel about my talents (or lack thereof) on any given day, I'm a writer. So I get up and drink coffee and bitch—and yes, sadly, maybe have a good cry and a pity party with my gluten free toast—but when all is said and done. I just fucking write. That's what I do.

XOXO
Sommer