A Glimpse of My Neurosis

I once responded to a request for guest bloggers for a popular fashion magazine [I won't say the name out loud but it rhymes with "hammer"]. I sent the editor my contact information and a link to my blog and within the week, her assistant replied positively that I was chosen. She and I corresponded back and forth and I sent my post as instructed. I have no idea if there were just a couple of us who were selected or if everyone who responded was. What I do know is that was several months ago and my article never saw the light of day. To this day I check to see if it's been posted even though I know that what I wrote is no longer topical when it comes to fashion; they're not likely to highlight a piece about spring wardrobe with fall fast approaching. I'll never know if it simply wasn't what they were looking for, if they had enough fodder of their own and no room for mine, or if they thought it sucked boobies. Of course, because I'm me, I cling to the latter.

So, when Allison Worthington (aka Mrs. Fussypants) contacted me recently to invite me to be a contributor for The Buzz section of the Lifestyle Channel on the soon to be launched, and re-vamped online magazine, Blissfully Domestic, I?....freaked the hell out. As I am wont to do. And as honored and flattered as I was (and still am!), the flattery didn't prohibit me from retreating into my shell and sit on her email for a couple of days. I've mentioned before that I'm a worrywart and shy. So while I rocked back and forth and drooled a little during my anxiety attack, I criticized my own skills as a writer. Have you met my grammar's atrociousness?

I've never written for anyone or anything other than my own blog(s). It's one thing for me to write here and readers come of their own volition, but to write when someone is expecting something from me? Where I'm the creator of the piece and there are no right or wrong answers? I tend to freeze, flip out, and obsess. It's like when I was in school. I was not a math wizard but I could do it and it was easy because there were formulas and only one correct answer. If I made a mistake I could check it and see where I went wrong. In classes that were more creative where there were no right or wrong answers are where I had the most difficulty. Because I have this habit of over analyzing every detail. I make the simple, excruciatingly difficult.

Creative writing has always been easy for me, but because it came easy, I assumed there was something fundamentally wrong with the finished piece; because, why wasn't it harder? That was too easy. It must be wrong.

I accepted her invitation! But not before sitting on my hands to prevent myself from biting off all of my nails. Basket case, who?