PREEEEEETTTTTTTY.

So my great-uncle -- he of the Strat-O-Matic game he didn't bother to research that ended up earning me $100 on eBay -- handed my mom a trio of old heavy books after our first yard sale on Memorial Day weekend and said, "Here, throw these away."

My mom kept them for a number of reasons:

1.) They were all published in 1899.
2.) While the covers have some damage and the binding is a bit of a disaster, the pages are lovely.
3.) My mother is not a moron.

Granted, they really seem to be the sort of books which would be better used as source materials for crafts, but the artwork, maps, and photos are gorgeous. Two of them are a set about American island possessions at the time, and the other is an atlas with some really awesome American history entries.

So now I get to set them up on eBay. Although mostly I just want to flip through them and pet the pages.

EDIT: NGL, one of my favorite part of the books -- in a "Oh, you" sort of way -- is how much of them read fairly obviously like, "All of these brown people have done such a wonderful job taking to civilization!" Yeah, okay.

Being an enormous worrywart.

So I'm almost out of alprazolam and my prescription has no more refills, which is great because I've been anxious as fuck about my writing since putting Heroine Addiction out there.

I have had the hardest time sitting down to write or edit for the longest time, and making the book available hasn't changed that. I've been mentally doing a lot of things -- plotting out what I want to do with the next Heroine book, examining the characters in Cigarettes and Shambles -- but physically not getting a lot on paper. Or anything on paper, for that matter. I sat down before to edit some more on The Monsters of Moosic and ended up nodding off with the cat in my lap.

Part of it is that while I'm happy going the self-publishing route, I worry I messed up somehow. Hell, it's something I'd be doing even if I were going through a legitimate publishing company. God knows there are a ridiculous number of books out there published through good well-known companies that needed a firm editor's hand (or, you know, several firm editors' hands). I mean, really ... Twilight, anyone?

So, yeah. The formerly agent-shaped person went over it, three or four other hardcare editor-type folks went over it, and I still worry. I'm the sort of writer who will worry about what she's writing to the point of testing out everything. The Books of Boggs is easier in some respects because I can drive places and check them out or figure out travel times or whatnot. The Heroine 'verse is different. Outside of household stuff like cooking times and bathroom details and stuff, there's a lot more making-shit-up going on just because, HI, superheroes. (Any Mythbusters episode made up of Heroine 'verse science is bound to be chock full o' 'Busteds'.)

And the thing is, me worrying about mistakes in the text is kinda weird, if only because half of the fun I have (or had, I suppose, considering how long it's been) writing fanfic is fixing mistakes in the text. So it's not like I can't use mistakes or problems later on. In fact, it's kind of a fun challenge if you look at it the right way. (Prime example: ( Cut for Heroine Addiction spoiler )

) Basically, I always want to respond to, "This is a screw-up," with, "There is a reason for that," even if there isn't one yet. Seriously, you guys have read my fanfic.

Still, though. I'm not on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds because I deal really well with problems, you know what I mean?

Meanwhile, I'm partly terrified because I have this nightmare that this is it. I put Heroine Addiction out and maybe I end up putting out The Monsters of Moosic and then ... that's it. My brain refuses to churn out any more. And I stop writing and have to work in a call center forever and ever and self-publishing a book is the most exciting thing that ever happens to me.

In summation: somebody bring me all of the alprazolam in the land, YESTERDAY. Ugh.