And by Stella, I mean Raptor Jesus. And by her, I mean his. And by groove back, I mean get his motivation to get work done on the manuscript/publishing project instead of lay on the couch all day watching movies.

It's been a week, and I haven't really done anything tangible on the book. Sure, I've been writing pithy things for RfM and we've all had some good laughs - except for god. Sitting up there on his high cloud constantly judging me.

GROW UP AND GET A SENSE OF HUMOR!

But I haven't actually submitted my publishing packet to anyone, nor have I even started to edit the draft. Sure I printed it out. And that was my big adventure for that day - going to Office Max and having the guy with Dragon Ball Z hair be like, "Hey, dude? What awesome thing do you need today?"

And I was like, "Whoa! I'm not here to order a Bloomin' Onion. Just print this out, please," while handing him my flash drive.

So he pulled up the document and then said, "Wow! All 124 pages of it, bro?" except that his voice started to slow down which was a dead give away that he started scanning the manuscript and was like, "What the fuck is this?"

While not being a Super Mario Bro., I still responded that I did indeed wish him to print out all 124 pages. And he put it into a neat little box which is kind of like the outer covering to the Ark of the Covenant.

If Mormons were to open the box to look at the contents within, I'm pretty sure that sexy ghosts would fly around the room and then turn scary before melting some faces (literally - not metaphorically with guitar solos) while someone shouts, "Shut your eyes! Don't look at it!" and all the children are hiding behind the couches occasionally peeking over to view the horror.

And so the Ark of the Covenant has sat on my coffee table for a week. Opened only long enough for me to take picture of the big ass stack of papers with my iphone and then send it to certain people and say, "Look. I wrote a book. Fuck you."

Except that if I don't keep working on it or submit it, what then would be the point? Might as well box it up and send it to a warehouse filled with a labyrinth of other boxes to be examined by "Top Men."

Who?

Top.

Men.

Well This stella really needs to get her groove back and not even talking about anything!

...somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly as important as the telling itself.

--Henry Miller--
--Reflections on Writing--

Fear of failure

Fear of rejection

Fear of criticism

What am I most afraid of though? I should consult with Scarecrow.

Life, as it is called is for most of us one long postponement. And the simple reason for it is: FEAR.

--Henry Miller--
--The Enormous Womb--

Fear is like fire:
if controlled,
it will help you;
if uncontrolled,
it will rise up
and destroy you.

Quotes lawyers, now? RJ, you're a fuckin' God, man. Leave the lawyers to Satan.

Here, something closer to your experience as a mormon that turns out to be quite universal; which you will discover as you recover:

The Collective says: "if you do your training well and become a nice boy or girl, we will love you." We want that. So a terrible fear comes. It is a fear that we will lose the love of the collective. I have felt it intensely. What the collective offers is not even love, that is what is so horrible, but a kind of absence of loneliness. Its companionship is ambiguous, like Mother love.

--Robert Bly--
--American Poetry--

Writers are *not* nice boys and girls.

Self publish on Amazon...you can the book done as a paperback and an e book.

Something to think about.

stormy

The refining stage. Sometimes taking that break is pretty important -- then when you go back you have enough distance to be more objective and see areas to tighten up or expand on.

Do you have any good beta readers? What about your editor -- can they give you any advice?

You could also try this website for tips:

http://www.writing-world.com/index.shtml

"And by Stella, I mean Raptor Jesus. And by her, I mean his. And by groove back, I mean get his motivation to get work done on the manuscript/publishing project instead of lay on the couch all day watching movies."

Sounds like Stella is feeling guilty for taking some time to really chill the bleep out.

Silly Stella...

My prescription: 'The Big Lebowski' and double dose of Fawlty Towers.

I think you should skip a step or three, and like all the other good writers, go to the Caribbean instead. Drink yourself stupid. Get laid. Forget about books.

All the great writers do that. ;>)

Sequoias

Muffler Bearings

Three-ringed Binders

Wing-tipped shoes

and

Titanium Spark Plugs

Just sayin'...

Ron

I hear you, man. I'm also making slow progress with a book-length project owing to repeated procrastination. But I intend to keep plugging away, a little at a time, and sooner or later I'll finish. I expect you'll do the same.

As a possible publication avenue, you might check out Lulu.com. They e-publish and paper-publish at reasonable rates. They have free book templates for formatting your work. The templates are for Microsoft Word and other popular processors. I'm toiling away using their template for Open Office.

So-now-after-the-pep-talk-I-better-write-some-pages-myself-ly yrs,

S