A Leap and a Prayer

Five-year plans are a very popular notion nowadays. People with real jobs, making real money, who have things like 401ks and stock portfolios, seem to rely on this concept very heavily.

Quite accidentally, my life as a professional writer has followed this set-up.

Five years after I graduated with a Masters from FSU, I sold my first short story and signed my first book contract. (I still like saying that. The sound of the words rolling off my tongue gives me the giggles.)

Now, five years (and 17 novels later) I am officially jumping genres.

While this is hardly news to my regular followers (since I’ve been babbling about it on and off for the last year), today it becomes a lot more real to me.

With Quiver now released to the literary world-at-large, I’ve realized that I may never, ever see another release day. There are no guarantees, no book contracts awaiting me in the mainstream…

*gulps*

*hyperventilates for approximately 2 minutes and 41 seconds*

*returns, still a little green around the edges*

“Scared straight” would be wryly appropriate in describing this monumental, eyes-wide-open but praying like mad, leap into the mainstream.

Yep, that about says it all.

Now, pardon me while I return to my hyperventilating.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Cowardice, Well-Deserved

I hesitate to even write this… (*chuckles sadly* Cowardice personified right there, folks. Jeez, I’m a wimp.)

Anyhow, I had a panic attack last night.

A bad one.

Full-blown.

My stomach even joined in for three hours of jolly good fun in and out of the bathroom.

It was simply terrible.

And exactly like the ones I used to have twenty years ago…

Exactly like the ones twenty years ago that crippled me and locked me in my room for ungodly stretches of time (years, people.)

I haven’t had one of these in probably nine years, the last time I had to up my medication to control the damned things.

Thankfully, there was a different reason for this setback. A stupid reason. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

I forgot to take my medicine yesterday morning… for the first time in 18 years.

Needless to say that won’t happen again.

But what really has freaked me out is the stark realization that even after all these years of relatively panic-maintained living, I am still so, so close to losing myself to the illness again.

One missed handful of pills and I’m back to that horrible place that scarred me so terribly.

So, yes. I hesitated even to write this.

Admitting to the world that you are still one sick puppy is daunting and a little stomach-turning.

It’s scary.

But it’s cowardice well-deserved.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe (survivor)