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Hmmm.

I know EXACTLY what you mean and there is no good answer for it. Yes, I have felt that way. In fact, I would say that about 75% of the way in which I annoy my friends is by calling them and saying some variation of “my new book is too crazy and no one is going to like it and for hell’s sake, why didn’t you stop me from writing this thing?” But the way that I am scared now is nothing to the way that I was scared when I was working on my first book.

People often say that you have to believe in yourself to make it. I am living proof that’s not true. I wrote and rewrote Tithe without really ever believing it would come to anything. But I won’t say that it didn’t hurt or that it wasn’t hard or that I didn’t keep stopping because I got discouraged. But in the end, there were three things that helped me push through:

- I became more afraid of never writing a book at all than of writing a bad book.

- I accepted that it was probably true that lots of people wouldn’t like my book and some people would even hate it. Sometimes when you say to yourself, okay my worst fear has come true, now what? it’s inspiring and you can move on from there. (Because there is no way to write a book that everyone will love. Want to feel better about this fact? Go look up your favorite book on amazon and read the 1-star reviews. Or look at these.)

- I focused on writing the book for me (and for my critique partners). I wrote the book my reader self would most like — not what the imaginary rest of the world wanted.

Wow, guys. You ask the HARD questions.