Will This Book Ever Be Finished?

I’ve been working on a humorous paranormal mystery series with romantic elements: Stephanie Plum pushing 50 meets a retired Fox Mulder. How about that pigeonhole? I learned that from being a member of Romance Writers of America. Give marketing something to work with.

But before marketing gets it, one must have a publisher, and before a publisher, one must have an agent, and before an agent, one must have finished the damn book (that was emblazoned on a New Jersey Romance Writers t-shirt that I wore to rags).

The first book in the series is sitting on my desk, hidden behind papers of “other” things, meetings, appointments, conferences that have passed, notes of things to look up. Book Two and Book Three are sitting, unfinished, in my computer.

Book One is edited and I’ve almost finished with putting the edits in the document. But I stopped. I stopped in November, 2016. I didn’t know why at the time. But I think it was partly a depression that hit many of us. But I think now it was what my sister (my editor — she’s been an editor for years) said. “This could really go somewhere.”

That scared the shit out of me.

Failure I can handle; I’m used to that. But success?

Will I be expected to repeat it, if successful? I reread what I’d written on Book Two and Book Three. Nope, not good enough if Book One is a success.

I was “dreading ahead” — one of my more famous faults.

And it’s not just with this series.

I have a paranormal novella set in Gettysburg today and in 1863 that is vegetating. I have a collection of dark fiction short stories that I need to revise and edit. And there are two complete manuscripts sitting on thumb drives that also need to be reread, revised, and then edited.

But here I sit, writing essays for Medium.

What the heck is wrong with me? Do I just need immediate gratification?

I know I took a creative nosedive after the election. No surprise in that.

Yet it’s been months and I’ve done so little with the fiction I’ve already written.

Am I afraid of success or am I afraid of failure?

Both.

Failure? I’m used to. I’m used to those rejection letters from agents and editors. One of those books gathering cyber spider webs has an older hero and heroine. When I pitched it to an agent, she actually moved away from me. I guess I’d said the unthinkable. Old people in love or even — gasp! — having sex?

So, self-publish it. Okay?

I did that on a paranormal romance and marketed it and heard crickets.

<<Sigh>>

So it’s success?

If I’m successful and sell books to more than friends and family, do I need to repeat that every year or every six months or — ever? And if I’m a one book wonder, is that better than being a no book failure?

I can’t be the only one with this problem. I once read that Emily Dickinson tied her poems together with a pink ribbon and put them in a trunk.

You don’t have to work harder if the fame is posthumous. <<Sigh>>

Getting out my cyber pink ribbon…