Can’t talk now, I’m proofing galleys…

*sigh* You know that expression, “So near and yet so far?”

Yeah, sometimes publishing the books is like that.

I get it done (I think) and perfect (I hope) and then I get it in (huzzah) and then…

They send it back to me so I can do the whole damned thing one more time.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m reading it, doubting every comma, every quotation mark, every word choice, every conversation, every paragraph…

In short, I’m fighting the temptation to just scream “Fuck it. I suck, my writing sucks, I should call it a complete fucking wash and just teach in obscurity forever and evermore!!!!”

Mate called on his way home from work (he does that–I love that about him) and I told him exactly that. “Fuck it. I suck, I should give it up.”

He laughed. “Oh–so we’ve hit ‘Book submission’, the final phase.”

Me: “I’ve done this before?”

“Only the last four years or so…”

So here I come, crawling back to the blog, and you all know what I’m going to say, and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. It’s 618 pages–seriously. 618 pages, and I have no idea whether it’s good or not. You all want to know where the prayer comes from? This right here is it–this terrible doubt that any sentence of that 618 pages is worth the paper it will be typeset on.

One more time, from the heart: Holy Goddess, Merciful God, LET IT NOT SUCK.

Amen.