The writing life is a roller coaster.  Some days I feel confident in my writing skills and excited about the things that I am writing, and sometimes I think that I must be so blind and pretentious and disillusioned to think that I would ever write something beautiful enough to be published.  Right now, my roller coaster is going down … down … DOWN.

I set myself up for this, without even realizing I was doing it.  This weekend I went to Duluth with some writer friends, and in the same weekend, I asked for a critique of my manuscript’s first draft and I was re-reading The Fault in Our Stars.  This means that my story was ripped apart at the same time that I was engrossed in John Green’s masterpiece, a formula that adds up to believing that I am worthless as a writer and am wasting my time pursuing it all.

But I couldn’t quit if I wanted to.  And I don’t want to.