Musings on confidence and killer deadlines

Confidence is such a funny thing. For me, it waxes and wanes with speeds that defy nature and logic.

Today, this hour, this minute, I feel pretty great. Book one in this new series has been cleared by my editor. Yay. And while I'm terrifyingly behind on book 2 (don't tell my editor. Oops, she sometimes reads this blog...) I feel pretty good about the story and where it's going. Sure, it won't be as super polished as I'd like it to be when she gets it in less than 2 weeks, but I'm pretty sure it'll be a coherent (and damn good) story. And I'm also confident I'll be able to do that polishing after I get her revision letter, a few days later. (Yes, this timeline is hyper accelerated. I honestly expect to get my revision letter a week, or less, after turning in the ms.) So, confidence high right now.

Just a few days ago -- hell, this morning -- I'd been so confused about how to solve a few technical details that I wondered if I'd have to scrap the entire book and start over.

I totally let my confidence in my abilities to solve these problems fade and it left me in a panic. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I ran into my sister in law this morning by accident, she asked if there was anything she could do to help (grocery runs, cutting off my internet access) and I told her confidence was my biggest barrier to meeting this deadline right now. LOVED her response. She said she believed in me and reminded me she'd been telling me that for nearly four years, ever since I let her read one of my manuscripts. She said if I lacked confidence she took it as a personal insult -- me suggesting that she was wrong about my talent. LOL.

Thanks K. And thanks too, to CP's Molly and Sinead for pulling me down off a yet another ledge this weekend. Not only did they talk me through my plot issues, Molly kept repeating, "It's going to be okay. It's going to work out." In a sincere way that made me believe her.

Good friends and family rock!