So little time, so much to do

Now that I’ve published Misfits from the Beehive State, I’m ready to get going on other projects. So I took a peek at everything I’ve left undone over the last seven years. I have stories that got published in magazines but really would like to live in a book, stories that I finished and set aside because I wasn’t sure if they were good, and stories I sent away, again and again, and never got published anywhere. I also have new stories, which I submitted to my writing group and incorporated feedback, but not yet sent off for publication. And I have unfinished stories, waiting for me to get to them.

All told, I’ve got 12+ stories that fit into one or another of those categories. And every time I look at them, I get anxious. Fiction is like that for me. I write nonfiction easily and (obviously) send it out shamelessly to the world in my blog. But fiction scares me. I’m scared to write it, send it for critique, look at the critiques, incorporate the critiques, and send it off. Now that this collection is done, I’m scared to ask people for reviews, to ask bookstores to buy my books, and to ask about setting up readings.

I do it all anyway, because, well, I’m brave. But now that I’ve got my list in front of me, I’m feeling especially queasy. And I have a new problem:  Where do I start???

So much to do, so little time.

By fdecomite (Tunnels of Time) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons