Sophomore Release Blues & Dread in Journal 2024

I’m struggling with my sophomore novel (I released the one). I’m having a lot of ideas come out and writing huge stories then dropping them 20k words in.

It’s a real pickle.

But anyway. There’s a large debate by my entire family of what I’m gonna do. I graduated and I’m thinking if getting a certification in teaching.

Hopefully I don’t jump off a bridge before that. I’ve been having like a exenstial dread fill me this entire summer chanting I’m a failure and I should burn my drafts and take one for the team.

It’s a real. Mess. Submitting to magazines and getting rejections. Writing drafts and feeling like destroying your laptop. I’m my own worse critic.

I look at my novel and say, is this really me? No. I feel embarrassed and sad when I write these days. I feel largely like a big failure doing anything these days.