So your first novel is in the hands of the beta readers – bless their hearts! – and you’re not quite ready to start your next novel. By “You” and “Yours” of course I mean “Me” and “Mine.” So what to do next? Well, there’s marketing and promotional stuff. The author’s Facebook page is up, the ad is running daily (and the dollars are ticking away like the seconds on my wristwatch. Yes, I’m over 55, thanks), my pinned tweet on Twitter touting my soon-to-be-published book is in place. But as the rain and hail lash at my windowpanes, and the winds howl and the thunder rumbles, I’m left feeling slightly adrift. There are probably things I should be doing, things that would be productive and meaningful. Instead, however, I’m sitting here, listening to the rain and hail and wind and thunder, grateful to be inside and dry. And very much aware that I’m currently adrift, in a none-too-sturdy craft on all-too-choppy seas.

And yet. For all the uncertainty and insecurity of the life of a self-publishing author, I’m still upbeat about this little scary journey of mine. Though the financial rewards are likely to be miniscule, at best, the psychic reward of having my novel finished and published, ready to be purchased, will, I hope, be substantial enough to compensate for the time and effort, the blood, toil, sweat, tears, and occasional night terrors that are an inevitable part of the novelist’s lonely trek. The self-doubts remain, of course. They will always be a part of me, haunting me like a Greek chorus and dogging my every step like hounds after a fox. But even Doubt has its useful purpose – if only to keep me alert to the dangers of complacency.

So I sit and I write, hoping to attract a reader or two along the way. I have no illusions about my chances for success as a writer. Dreams and fantasies, sure, but no real certainty one way or another. But the attempt itself has meaning, I think. And as the wind and rain and hail taper off and the thunder fades, I’m left with the realization that this quirky little idea of mine is now a novel, in utero if not quite in fact. Or perhaps a chick waiting to be hatched (as opposed to an egg about to be laid!). I may be its only fan. But just the fact that I can take a slip of an idea and turn it into something tangible, if not enjoyable; that’s a feeling of which no amount of self-doubt can rob me. And that’s why I sits and writes.