I'm genuinely scared right now!*

On Sunday I admitted to my class (ahem...I teach Family History) that I am a quitter.  It's true, when things get hard I usually bail.  Now, I know this is wrong, but it doesn't stop me from having the urge to give up on things.

 I've been thinking about it, Elementary Education (as a major) was hard! Kudos to all of you who completed that program.  To me, Sociology was the best, most laid back major.  Yes, I suppose at certain times it was difficult, but it was fun to me.  I think it's the same with writing.  Writing is hard, but I love to do it, so I keep doing it.  Over the course of about two years, I wrote three novels.  I have had a few friends read them and make edits (thanks Ryan, Amber, Sandy) and I have been dragging my feet about making said edits (because let's face it - it's sometimes harder than you'd think and it's boring).  I have been slowly making my way towards actually doing something about these books.  So almost a year ago, I started to look at literary agents and started writing my query letter.  I thought that writing three stories was difficult, but the hardest thing I've had to write is that darn query letter!  I finally finished it a few months ago and recently have started to edit (thanks Ryan).  I have given myself a deadline; I want to send in the query letter and sample writing to an agent by April 1st.

Tonight I was working on the edits and looking over the list of agents again, trying to choose the right one from the agency I was looking over.  From there I found an agent’s twitter page and an author who has just been signed by the agent I was considering.  I looked over the author’s blog a bit and then it hit me...I'm going to send in my work to someone.  I'm going to send it in to a complete stranger and there is no reason why she should read my work over any of the other submissions she gets.  I haven’t joined any writing communities, attended any conferences, I’m going into this completely unprepared.  

...I've had this kind of panic attack before.  I was walking around Barnes and Noble once and thought, "Even if I get published, why would my story stand out above hundreds and hundreds of books?"  It's a feeling of insignificance, utter...smallness. Tonight my thoughts were more, "Am I authentic? Fresh?", “Should I stalk agents more, go to where they are speaking and join societies that they are in?” It as though the more the fact that I am going to actually submit this stuff becomes real, so does rejection…and I hate rejection.  

I just need to take a deep breath and calm the heck down!* I have nothing to lose and I’ve gotten to write some novels (and am working on a fourth by the way).  I’m just panicking tonight…