And This Is When the Neurosis Begins
May 3rd, 2007 by Allison Winn Scotch
[WU Note: This post originally appeared on Allison’s site, “Ask Allison,” but we thought WU readers would appreciate what she had to say too and asked if we might repost it here; happily for us, she agreed. You’ll learn more about Allison’s journey tomorrow when we post our interview with her. Enjoy!]
It’s a funny thing: now that I have the book in my hands, I’ve become completely neurotic about other people reading it. I was flipping through it this weekend - I can’t bring myself to read it from cover to cover because I’ve literally already read it like, 15 times - and was thinking, this sucks!! I can’t believe that this is going out into the world!! Who agreed to publish this??
Cue: me heading to the gym and running five miles to deal with myself.
I’m not the type of person who has a lot of self-doubt. You’re probably not going to get the figurative, “does this make me look fat,” question from me. But let me tell you, publishing a novel is terrifying. Thrilling, yes. But terrifying all the same, and at this very moment, it’s hard not to be plagued with all sorts anxiety.
I mean, not only do you put yourself out there for critics, who actually don’t bother me so much, but you put yourself out there for all of your friends and acquaintances and friends of acquaintances to see…and inevitably, some of them are going to think you suck. That’s just a fact. Fiction is so subjective that what floats my boat won’t float someone else’s, and while I completely and totally understand this, it still makes my stomach churn just a tad. Because at the end of the day, even if your book isn’t someone’s cup of tea, you really don’t want them to think that you suck. But the truth of the matter is, is that someone will think I suck, and the truth of that matter is that I just have to deal with it.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be logging a lot more miles on the treadmill in the next few months. 
So I’m curious - other pubbed writers - have you experienced similar moments or am I just a complete headcase?
Illustration courtesy of Inkygirl Debbi Ridpath Ohi
I’ll let you know how I feel when I actually have this problem, but since writing is an extension of ourselves, then I expect to be as freaked out as you are right now. It’s a ‘oh god, they didn’t like the book, will they think less of me?’ moment.
But they will like the book. And they won’t think less. They’ll admire the courage you had in writing it in the first place.
I have gotten this feeling when I let someone read a draft I may be struggling with, or a completed, yet to be published, work. And the running works for me as well (afterwards an umbrelly drink is the cherry on the day).
It’s 80,000x more personal than an article isn’t it? No matter how different our characters are from ourselves or how different the situations in our fiction are from our real lives, a novel (manuscript in my case) still represents an intimate portrait of who were are as writers. So, heck no, you don’t want anyone to think it sucks. The good news is it’s all subjective, so not even the nasty “suck” label can stick. Your vision, your story, your view from your window into the world that you created. It can’t suck. It’s just your POV.
Enjoy the coming week, Allison!
Many of us feel like this - it resembles sending one’s beloved child out to confront a pack of wolves. One does develop a thicker skin about it with time. You’ll almost certainly be pleasantly surprised by the reactions of your circle of friends and acquaintances. I found people were deeply impressed just by the fact that I’d had a novel published, even if they were not great fans of my kind of book.