I’m getting Valentina fatigue. At one time, she gnawed and clawed her way into my heart. Now, I’m just blasé about her cannibalism and her ‘I’m having someone over for dinner’ jokes. I know that this is normal for me, but what’s not normal is that I have a hard deadline. I have to have everything done and uploadable by Hallowe’en. If I follow my normal route, I’ll work on something else and poor Valentina will fall by the wayside until October 27^th when I have no way of getting everything finished. Cue depression spiral and ice cream.

Yes, it’s the first week of March as I write this post and October seems so long off. Yes, I have dozens of projects I can work on, but this is a test for me. Can I hold myself to a hard deadline? If I can, then writing professionally can be feasible. Of course, I can always fall back on the wisdom of Douglas Adams: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

Maybe I’m doing this because I don’t feel professional, yet. Yes, I am making money (very little…) and I am (eventually) finishing projects, but I still feel like I’m pretending to be a writer.

Is this imposter syndrome? Looks like that on first blush. I don’t know. I feel like I’m waiting for a fairy to tap my head with a wand and say “You’re a writer! Now go forth and create the Great American Novel! Or at least the next Successful Kentucky Novel!”

God, this sounds so needy. Does Stephen King go through this? Probably not, then again – he’s got the track record to prove it. He’s even won an O. Henry Award for one of his later short stories. I can barely write a short story. I’ve written four and put them out there, but they were all stretches.

I know what I need to do. “Sh*t or get off the pot” as my mom would delicately put it. I think I’m going to work on ‘Medicine Show’ for a month, then see how I feel. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea on what to do…or I’ll finish ‘Medicine Show’. Either way, I am going to be done with something by October.

I should get to work.