Writing Worries

Sometimes, I feel like an idea is weak, in its infancy, maybe, or that perhaps I'm missing that key to making it great. Whatever it is, this idea is in my head, wanting to get out, but then I place it on the page and I start to doubt myself. I start to quibble and worry and claw at my brain, hoping, maybe, that it will work. I can't figure it out.

In this case, it's my newest project, Theatre Magic. I have so much there, so much forming, and it's been around for some time. Not my longest project, but it's honestly a pretty old one, too. I can't tell what it is. I think I'm over-worrying about the comic portion. It is most certainly a comic. I've figure that one out a while ago. The problem, however, is that I'm worrying. Is it comic enough? Is it fast enough? Will people be interested?

Other times, I start to worry because I read other comics. I look at Sandman or Allan Moore's work (both are highly influential to me, primarily Gaiman, but through him Moore is too). I start to worry... These works feel so much more adult to me. Mine feels tiny and childish and cartoonish. It feels silly and cheap. Worthless. I feel like this project is a mockery of Sandman, somehow. That I just want to re-skin the series as this theatre realm with gods and a poor unfortunate soul wandering in the midst.

It just happens sometimes. Even if I look at things not related to my comic, superhero stuff or when I flip through House of Mystery. I worry that these great people who wrote all these things... That I'll walk up to a booth to chat to someone with my manuscript in hand (or possibly my query letter) and hand it to them and they'll look at me like I'm an insane little twat. I don't even know what they'd do then... Call in some guards and haul my ass out the door and I'll be banned from a convention forever. (It's not realistic, I know, but this is just what I think.) Maybe my idols, my inspirations will be there. All of them, even. I'll have this crowd of people I admire and they'll see me, the greatest writing failure in all of history.

And now I start to worry, because it sounds like I'm saying all these "me me me" things. It's not that I'm trying to be self-centered about all this, really. It's that I feel like I'm trying to belong into this circle that I don't and I'll be horrendously embarrassing for others, not just myself. Like "how dare she come in and ruin our cool writing club!? We're awesome people, why did she even bother? She can't write worth a damn!"

And then my cat, Cheerio Kitten, comes over and tells me "Wiiiiiii" and I chuckle and that's how my night goes. Worrying, worrying they my writing is crap, that my stories are weak and silly, and Kitten attempts to impart wisdom, but I cannot understand it.