Your daily dose of depression

You know, I was actually going to write some whiny rambling on life, the universe and everything. Then I came to my senses and mentally slapped myself for being a pessimist. Like, what the hell, Claire?! When did you become such a drag? To hell with that, I say! So yeah. I'm thirty. I feel about a hundred, and I wonder what exactly I'm supposed to have been doing for the last ten years, and I'm still not published unless you count the sheer volume of crap I've left here. The blog's gone from plain weird to insightful to angry to what-the-hell-are-you-smoking-lady in the space of... what, a year or two? So much for me trying to keep it sensible at least. The Novel is still in drafting hell, and I'm currently swinging between "Well, this is good, sort of" to "I am never getting a book deal SOB".

And yet, I'm still... proud, I guess, that I'm doing it. Every word is one step closer, one more lesson learned. The current trend for midlist authors to go the way of the ebook and self-publish is both scary and compelling to me, and considering the absolute madness going on right now with the mainstream industry, I've been wondering if it's also the path most suitable for my work. I'm still divided if only because I want to try both.

Right now, I think I need someone to tell me that my stuff is good - but I'm terrified of allowing anyone to read it. And yes, I know why. You think it's easy handing something you've poured your heart and soul into over to someone else to judge? How am I supposed to do that if even I'm not totally sure it's readable?

By growing a spine. By doing what I usually do at the first sign of trouble, which is turn into fucking steel and deal with it. Should I just hide away, emo-goth like, sinking into pity and self-doubt, too scared of rejection to ever give someone the chance to praise me? TO HELL WITH THAT, TOO! I have a line of ancestors going back to the High Kings of Ireland that would spit on me for my cowardice!

I have not done enough angry ranting lately.

I'm going to go play Team Fortress for a while, then I'm going to post one of my short stories here. Apparently I can't post anything of the Novel because the publishers might not like it. I'm totally indifferent to my short stories though - the chances of getting one of them published is just about nil, and not only because I think they're shit. The important thing is that they'll be visible, readable shit.

{added by edit} I'm going to post this here because there is nothing, nothing like Courage Wolf to make anyone feel like a badass. He suits my current mood of belligerence and anger.