It’s Never as Bad as You Thought

There exists this moment before I edit where I feel completely overwhelmed. This is, quite literally, part of my process. I get this sense of literary vertigo, like I’m staring over the cliff’s edge into the crashing gears of some giant malevolent machine that I cannot comprehend and that I am sure will crush me into my constituent parts. And in this moment I want to back away and say, “Fuck it, I’m not doing this, I’m done, game over, my work sucks, I’m not a writer, I’m just some asshole, I can’t hack it, I can’t-” And then I leap over the cliff’s edge and let the gears take me. And that’s when I find out it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It’s never as bad as you thought.

CHUCK WENDIG