I'm a wimp

Last night I had dinner with some other writers from San Antonio who are participating in NaNoWriMo. This was the second dinner I've gone to. We met at a Mexican food restaurant and this one girl (who says she has ADD along with a dozen other ailments and whose life is always drama, drama, drama) did the vast majority of the talking, so I ate and chatted a little with a woman who's written erotica (but whose stories really sound more like bodice-rippers raised a notch) and did my usual listening. Then someone asked if anyone had been published and without thinking, I raised my hand. I told them my 2007 NaNoWriMo book, "Bobby Carapisi," was available through Nazca Plains via Amazon.com and it's in two volumes. Then this sweet, thin kid with big eyes (if he weighed more than 140 lbs I'd be surprised, and I hate him for it) asked me what it was about. Natural question, right? Only I got flustered and worried about how people would react to a real thumbnail sketch of the books so said, "It's about two guys who are attacked and how it affects their lives and each one is treated by the legal system. One is blown off because he's a nobody, the other gets better treatment because he's well known." Which is true -- but the reality is, I censored myself. Nothing about the sexual aspect of the story...the fact that both men are raped and that is what really affects their lives and people's reactions to them. Like I was afraid I might offend someone.

That's ridiculous. I published the book under my name. The online synopsis makes it very clear what the book is about. Anyone who looks it up will discover this. When it first came out, I was up front about it in a writing group I was part of, in LA, and told all my friends. Hell, even my mother knows about it. And that didn't bother me. It was being with live people I barely knew that made me nervous and self-conscious to the point I wussed.

Of course, that's how I've always been about anything I've done that's creative. Used to be when people asked me what I did, I told them I worked in a bookstore. If I was praised for art or writing, I'd think the person's being nice or wants something. If I was criticized for it, I'd think that person's viewpoint is more important than mine and take it to heart. It's like I felt that if I tell others what I've done, I'm being grandiose. Oh, I'm better than I used to be, when negative comments would send me into a depression and I'd rewrite a script based on all the criticism and blow off the positive, but I really thought I was farther along and would own BC and everything in it without hesitation, no matter what. Looks like I was fooling myself.

Sigh.

I looked through what I've done for POS and what I still need, and it's not as much as I thought. Like I'm maybe 60% done with the story. I'm going to try and write at least 1000 words a day while doing this storyboarding/script job, but no promises on that.