What the hell am I doing?

Yeah, I missed an entry. Not the first, etc.

I'm chipping away at the unfinished bits of In The Dark, and I just had one of those moments where I feel like not only did I show up at work without my pants, but I left my keycard at home and I can't even get through the door. Some very unhelpful voice in my head is asking, “What are you doing? You've never written a science fiction novel before! This doesn't have any cool monsters or ray guns! It doesn't even have warp drive! How can you write a science fiction story were no one can go faster than the speed of light?”

I know that voice. It was with me just before I signed my name on the dotted line that would send me off to boot camp and guarantee that the next four years of my life would be planned out by someone else. It told me I was making a mistake by getting married, divorced, and then married again. That whispering, shrieking, laughing voice is with me every time I make an important decision, have a chance to take something back, or see someone better or worse off than I am now. Sometimes it offers good advice, so I can't just tell it to go get lost. Hell, sometimes I listen to that voice, write down what it says, and then go use all of it in a story. Sometimes it talks like my mom or dad, or schoolteachers who I never quite saw eye to eye with. Sometimes it's even the voice of people I see every day, and who I know would say those exact things if I asked for their opinions. Maybe someday I'll stop hearing that voice, but maybe not.

In this particular case, though, I am telling it to get lost. It spoke to me while I was writing Roja, telling me I would never finish it.

Still writing.