Maggie (
padawansguide) and Janine (janinespendlove/amaz0n_princess) asked me to do the Athena's Daughters anthology--that was yesterday's news, that I'm writing a Black Ribbon story for it--and then Janine asked if I'd be interested in writing a story for her War of the Seasons Book 3 Kickstarter. I've known them both for several years now (you may recognize them as longtime commenters here, actually), which is one of the reasons I'm being pretty open about writerly anxiety: they know me well enough to not be spooked by it. Honestly, I thought talking about anxiety yesterday might just make it worse, but I felt a lot lighter afterwards. Paradoxically, it's sort of my attempt to be as professional about the whole thing as possible--being up front about anxiety, bipolar/seasonal depression, and the limitations I know I have, not just for my own sake, but in hopes that it'll make other people feel better about their own. And in this case, both story deadlines seem compatible with other things I'm trying to get done, so I said sure, let's open the door when opportunity knocks, why not? Also, it just so happened that the War of the Seasons deadline falls after Dracula recapping but before next spring's Hannibal recapping, But yeah, I felt a lot lighter yesterday--possibly because y'all were so excited about it for me, not unlike a very large patronus. And blathering about Black Ribbon was sort of helpful in terms of reminding myself why I enjoy writing it--that I enjoy writing it--instead of focusing on the existential terror quite so much.
crypticidentity: the phrase in your post title ["*internal screaming*"] always makes me think of this now, even though it's not EXACTLY the same thing:cleolinda: Heeeeee. I seriously thought about either using that picture on the Tumblr [version of the] post, or this one: Meanwhile, you can now see my author bio in the wild. Even my mother thinks it is "so you," so you guys did good.
