Doubt

As I sat down at my desk this morning, hot curlers and all, anxious to get all I needed done before an appointment, anxious for the appointment—the yearly (late) mammogram (including the Sonocine, which I’m doing because of the bit of dust up two years ago with a scare after a mammogram, right in the middle of fighting MPGN. You think you should only have to deal with one thing at a time, but that just isn’t how life happens) I knew exactly what I was going to write about this morning. Doubt.


I’d been thinking about the subject quite a bit lately, too. And with the gathering of my old manuscript, rereading the critiques, seeing all the notes, research, rewrites I had already done, some things happening to family members and the economy, the subject kind of bit me in the butt anyway.

Doubt came rushing in as I put the manuscript and all my notes in some kind of order. I could feel the overwhelming sense I just couldn’t do this crawl over me. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t do this. I was fighting so many other fights. Caring for an elderly parent, trying to keep family members bolstered through their problems, house and garden, day to day responsibilities. I couldn’t do it. It was too much. Maybe, later. Maybe, never.

I wanted to do this perfect. I wanted this book finally done, finished, but I wanted so much more. I wanted it published. I wanted it to be good, as good as Lavyrle Spencer’s Hummingbird or Endearment, or anything she wrote, as good as Kaki Warner’s Pieces of Sky, or The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I wanted so much.

That thought has been racing through my head all weekend. That finally there has to be something to come out of my work to show for all the time I’ve spent writing and trying. I have to do this and it has to be the best. I want… I want…

All these thoughts have been running wild through my head all weekend, like a pack of children kept up past bedtime. I corralled all that scurrying mind-doubt on my morning walk this morning. Hold-up and hold on. I’m writing. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to the point I’d be able to face a novel. I’m up to it, too, because I’m not taking it on, all at once. I’m just taking a small step at a time. And it doesn’t have to be as good as Spencer’s or Warner’s or Steins. It only has to be my best.