This is me, taking a break from working on the sample chapter I need to submit to Chaosium today. It's for a sourcebook dealing with the King in Yellow mythos.

This is me, reflecting on the fact that under normal circumstances I write stuff like this for fun... so it shouldn't be so numbingly difficult to do it on assignment.

This is me, realizing that I am in a bit of a no-win scenario here. If the editor at Chaosium doesn't like my work, he'll tell me to go fly (politely of course. He is an eminently polite man, and has already been very kind to me. Nevertheless, being told to go fly is being told to go fly). If that happens, I'll have failed at something important to me, that I've worked hard at.

On the other hand, if he likes it... then I have to write the book. Which, while exciting, is in some ways just as bad as being rejected. Because then, you know, I have to write the thrice damned thing.

There's a middle ground of course. He has already noted that he thinks the topic I'm working with might not warrant an entire book, but that it might serve as an article. So it's possible that I'll be able to split the difference, revise my submission and have it published as an article. Less prestigious, but less work also.

Whee.

The funny thing is that this really is the sort of thing that I write on my own, just for pleasure's sake. I should be enjoying it a lot more.

I'm hoping that once I strip away the initial nervousness of writing for someone else the pleasure I normally take in the act of writing and in the subject at hand will return.