A writer's prayer
Please, oh god/goddess/all-powerful-spirit*, please help me remember: my novel is not the exception. If no one wants to read it, there's a very good possibility that it isn't as good as I think. Please help me remember that I am as good at judging the quality of my own work as your average parent of a newborn is at judging the beauty of their offspring. Please, please, please keep me from posting rants about the evilness of anyone telling me that my book needs work, and remind me that it's extremely unlikely that a critique of my book is motivated by the critiquer's jealousy of my mad skillz. I will have invested hundreds of hours in it, and so I know this will be difficult. But please, remind me how silly and pathetic other people look when they do this, and remind me that those are two words I really don't want applied to me.
Amen.
* I really hope there is one, because I suspect I'll need the help when it's my turn in the barrel. And yes, I do know the joke that's the punchline to. If you don't, I recommend looking it up before using the line. Oh, and not on a work computer.