Perhaps there’s something wrong with my mouth, the way my tongue touches the hard palate, or the way my lips purse. Perhaps it’s a genetic defect, though I don’t recall either my father or my mother having the problem. But then again it could have skipped a generation, I suppose. Maybe my mother dropped me on my head when I was a baby …
On the other hand, it could be some sort of psychological problem. Maybe I need to seek help. Maybe Freud would say I got stuck in one of the early stages of childhood development … oral? … anal? (Oh knock it off! I can see where your naughty minds are going with that one ☺) Possibly there’s a 12-step group that deals with my problem, or maybe there are psychologists who specialize in my particular affliction.
Note to self: Check online for self-help books on topic.
Well, it’s no good speculating when the damage is done. I suppose now all I can really do is treat the symptoms — the waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing, the excess drinking of coffee, the panic attacks when I sit down at my laptop to work in the morning and realize just how much I have to accomplish that day, the associated inability to do housework, my inclination to hide out for days with no companionship other than my laptop.
I have a sneaking suspicion that my affliction is common among writers, though when I’m suffering from a particularly bad bout, I feel like I’m the only one in the world who just can’t do it.
I feel like I’m the only one in the world who just can’t say NO!
Oh, believe me, I’ve tried, but I break out in a cold sweat of fear that this might just be the one time when I absolutely, under no circumstances, should refuse the possibility that this could be the best opportunity ever. So I say YES!
The way I see it in my fevered little mind, saying no shuts doors. Saying no means that whatever might have resulted from the simple uttering of the YES word, whatever adventures I might have had, I’ve just refused with a simple two-letter word. I’m a firm believer that the more doors we walk through, the more doors are opened to us. That’s all positive, that’s all a good thing, but just how many doors can one person walk through before they become a twitching, neurotic heap, hunching bleary-eyed over their laptop? … er … wait a minute. Why does that sound so familiar?
I suppose as NaNoWriMo is now well and truly upon us, there’ll be a lot of people wondering if they should have said no. Maybe it’s a Pavlovian thing. Yes means possibilities. Yes means new opportunities. No means the doors are shut to those possibilities. Saying yes generates a sense of excitement, a sense of anticipation of new adventures, of new plots and new characters. But doesn’t saying NO also open the door to other, different possibilities? Saying no means that I could actually have time to give my house a proper cleaning. Saying no means I might have time to do girlie things like shopping for pretty stuff and practical stuff I’ve put off shopping for because I said YES too many times. Saying no means I could do some much-needed redecorating and renovating. Saying no means I might have time to take up a new hobby, to take an online course, to learn to speak Italian …
But to me, saying no means feeling lazy and unproductive. OK, I get that those feelings are just a part of my inherently neurotic self, but I feel them nonetheless. And if I’m honest, I can’t neglect that the doors that saying NO would open are often doors that I’m a little bit scared to walk through. Better the devil you know … Instead, I say YES, and I feel the exuberant panic that’s a cross between jumping up and down and punching my fist in the air in triumph and excitement and banging my head on the desk in the cold sweat of fear as I moan, ‘Ohmygod! What have I done?!?!?!’
I’m in that scary exciting, run away screaming, writing like a madwoman against tight deadlines space at the moment. Grace Marshall is frantically writing Interviewing Wade to come out in February. KD Grace is butting in to write her first ever M/M novella, which just also happens to be her
first ever vampire story. To Rome with Lust is less than a month from its release date, with a two-week blog tour hard on its heels – posts still to be written … I’m right in the middle of the Lakeland Witches blog tour, and there’s a tongue-in-cheek billionaire novella waiting in the wings. All this in the midst of feeling bereaved that Demon Interrupted had now had its online HEA, and I’ll miss writing sexy, romantic stories for you on my blog. Do I dare say YES to another serial??? *Twitch, shiver, anticipate*
I’ll admit my reasons for sharing my NO-rosis with you are a bit mercenary. I needed a blog post for today and I couldn’t say NO! Also, I’ve read that it helps to talk about our neuroses. Isn’t that the first step to recovery? Doesn’t that mean I might be more likely to say NO next time???
… No, not really?
Didn’t think so …
KD I adore this post and completely identify with everything you’ve said! It’s the thought of missing out because I said ‘no’ that I hate, plus I’m always so excited by everything!
But saying ‘no’ can be very healthy, in fact one year I made it a New Year’s resolution to say no more often. I kind of stuck to it…for a while. Then I got excited again and started saying yes, yes, yes! LOL
Omg! This is why I adore you. I am currently in writing hell due to being unable to say no- and yet if I had said no, I would have felt a failure. I am officially hopeless! And obviously in good company! Xx
I hear that… altho this year I had so much on my plate I had to say No to naNO! so that I could edit the stuff I’ve already got written… but never fear, I just said yes to a three novella contract… next year!