Monday, February 28, 2011

Anticipation: the most frustrating emotion EVER

Good morning, everyone! Hope your week has started out great. Quick shout out: I just wanted to say Happy Birthday, to my Aunt Jackie! We're going out to celebrate tonight with Red Lobster. Yuuummm.

But as you can see from the title of the post, feelings of anticipation and anxiety have been high here in my little corner of the East Coast, and at most universities around the U.S for that matter. This week is when the majority of Masters of Fine Arts Schools for various genres of creative writing are making their acceptance notifications. My phone has not left my hand since Thursday when the calls started going out, but this got me thinking.

Deja vu. I feel like I've done this before. After much thought, I realized I have done this before.

How many times have I hoped my phone would ring and the call would be from an agent or editor who is in love with my novel and wants to sign me? How many times have I dreamed about that moment? The answer: countless times.

Isn't that the feeling that most writers get throughout the majority of their careers? When you write your first novel, you anticipate reaching the end, writing those last few sentences. You wait and wait for relief, until you're finally there! Only to realize you will now anticipate finishing your edits, then finishing your query letter. Then you'll anticipate agent responses, editor responses, publishing house responses, reader reviews. All that emotion just to start the whole process over again when you begin your next novel.

The process is daunting. It's enough to drive any writer completely bonkers, but yet we keep coming back, book after book, and every time we face these same feelings. There must be something out there that helps writers cope with these insane anxieties.

So that's my question for you today. How do you cope with the pressures of writing, or for you non-writers, life in general? My answer: my secret worlds. The worlds all my characters live in and where the plot lines to my stories play out. Escaping there is where I find my relief. Where do you find yours?

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