Current mood:	tired
Entry tags:	work, writing

That sickening feeling
My latest non-fiction work, a review of Matt Mason's The Pirate's Dilemma, is now live on the Tyee.

Over the past year or so, my freelancing traffic has dropped significantly. There are several causes for this: MVK duties, an illness in the family, a relatively steady run of temp work, but a lot of it is just demoralization.

I received a call from the editor about making a last minute addition to the piece, with a few hours notice. This was not a difficult task, as it would only involve a paragraph or two and it concerned an event I was already following in the news. I finished it ahead of deadline and even had time for a quick polish as well.

The problem was that I felt sick afterwards, like I'd been in a car accident or some other sudden situation of violence. The tired yet jittery hangover of an adrenaline rush. I think this was because the thought of making a mistake put me into a fight or flight reaction.

Writing fiction doesn't do that me. (With that, what holds me back is the lack of belief it will matter to anyone, even if published.) Journalism, however, has the potential to hurt someone if done poorly. When I see examples of incompetent or corrupt journalism, I take it personally. And when I make mistakes, it hits me hard. Fear of that holds me back.

The other piece of writing I'm working on now is an erotica/social science fiction piece for Circlet Press' steampunk anthology. I have a soft spot for Circlet Press, as they published one of my very first fiction pieces years ago, and it was a white elephant piece that was significantly longer than the other pieces in the anthology. It qualified as a novelette. Yet, they published it, and even put it at the end of the anthology. The piece I'm working on, The Innocent's Progress, is something I'm quite proud of, but it's a neither-fish-nor-fowl piece that I don't know if it could be published anywhere else. With this, what's holding me back is the thought of it not being accepted: not erotic enough, not fantastic enough, not steampunk enough.

I've been researching Victorian theatres for the past few days, so I will put in as much setting detail as possible, then print it on Tuesday and send it off.