Having Confidence as a Writer

Today is one of those "I can't focus at all, I mean at all, I mean totally at all (continue this to infinity)" kind of days. And there are multiple reasons for this:

1. I didn't sleep last night. Brains don't work very well without sleep, do they?
2. It's a Monday. Need I say more?
3. I'm reevaluating. And by that I mean reevaluating how I'm spending my time. 
4. I live with cats. They are oh so cute, and I love to snuggle them at random times throughout the day.
5. It's First Monday and I'm excited. The first Monday of the month I meet my friend Bill for dinner, and we have a grande ole time.

I haven't touched my book manuscript in months, and I waffle around why that is. I think, as I touched on in my last post, I've just been busy busy busy. And when you're busy busy busy, it's hard to write write write. Well, let me amend this statement.

It's hard to write if you're not obsessed with writing. And I'm not obsessed with writing. I love it, but I'm not obsessed with it. At least not all the time.

For me, writing is more like an on-again, off-again relationship. I write in spurts, I produce stuff in waves. I experience fleeting moments of brilliance that quickly flit away into the atmosphere from which they came. See that? That was one. I think. Right? Surely!

But I do sometimes wonder how much of this behavior is attributed to a deep down lack of confidence.

Every artist struggles with feeling like they are good enough. I've written about it before, and I'm sure if you want to scroll through my posts you'll find it quickly enough. But artists (and I hesitate to even call myself one - how's that for lack of confidence?) always want to produce something great. Nobody wants to be a mediocre artist, do they? I mean, does anyone really want to be a mediocre anything at the end of the day?

And with that comes fear of failure, and fear of mediocrity, and fear of just not measuring up. Or of just not being that artist you thought you were or that you set out to be.

Then all of a sudden I'll be thumbing through a magazine and see a promotion for a recently published book. And it's a book with a story that sounds, to me, absolutely cliche or terribly laughable or painfully unrealistic. And yet...wait for it...

Somebody published it.

So um, why can't I do that? Why do I spend so much of my precious energy fearing failure and worrying about being good enough when - clearly - there are plenty of people who are "good enough" to get published? And why do I think this way when I'm a professional writer by day, and perhaps actually have a good shot at producing something good?

These are my Monday musings as I pitter patter around my house, and as I look at my author website (which needs to be redone - oh, technology, you imploded on yourself). And as I look at my workload, which needs to be better managed so I can have time for the things that matter to me.

And let's not forget that little manuscript file here on my computer that is screaming at me. You know what it's saying? "Work on me, you stupid human. I've been sitting here for months."