Living in Terror

Okay, first of all, I am officially blonde again. After going fire-engine red last May, I switched to dark brown about two months ago because the red kept fading and looking rusty. Plus, as is always the case when I color, I get bored and was already feeling the re-blonde itch, so wanted to get rid of as much red as I could so I wouldn't turn brassy.

(Those of you who also have pinkish tones in your complexion know what I'm talking about--golden or yellowy blondes make us look like horrible tomato people.)

Anyway. I better finish or this whole post will be about hair, thus rendering the clever title ineffective. Last week I scoured the shops here to find a bleach that actually works--for some reason, blonde dyes here are really useless. They couldn't lift an empty paper bag. But I did find a 40-volume developer and bleaching kit which would have worked beautifully if I'd had time to really let it. I didn't. (See, I used to bleach my hair white. The way to do that is to leave the shit on until it dries. Seriously. I'd leave it on for like 6 hours.) This time I only had an hour and a half, so my hair ended up orangey-pink with white roots. It was, in a word, absolutely fucking hideous. I looked like some sort of creepy sugarplum doll turned evil. And also, tomato face. It didn't help that I had a stress-related spot on my chin, either (which is thankfully gone).

So hubby had to go to Tesco for me, because I didn't want to leave the house, at least not without piling my cotton-candy hair in a hat, and buy me some dye. Light ash blonde.

Sigh. I look like a normal, pretty girl again. I'm sure in photographs I'll still look like a fat-nosed moonface with piggy eyes and no chin, but trust me, I do actually look pretty in person. And that's probably the only time you'll ever hear me admit that.

I also chopped off about three and a half inches, so I have a chin-length bob. I prefer to think of it as sexy flapper hair, not dull suburban mom hair.

Anyway, on to the point of the post, if you're still with me.

I'm scaaaared.

Scared because my 750 will be up at Miss Snark this weekend, and I am more and more convinced that it will make me look like a hack. I rewrote it but thought I had to send it right away so didn;t give myself enough time to edit. I'm sure it's garbage. More to the point, I am sure every agent and/or editor I might ever want to query, or who might ever see it, will be reading the COM and will know I'm a terrible writer. They'll get my query and say, "Yeah, I remember this. Garbage. She sucks" without even looking at the new, improved pages I sent. I mean, c'mon, it's not like my hook is one people will forget, is it?

So that's Fear #1. But nipping at its stylish heels is Fear #2...because I have two lovely new releases, I will also soon be getting reviews. That's right. People who don't know me, or possibly know of me and think I'm an idiot bitch, will be telling other people if my books are worth reading or not.

You guys know how strongly I believe people have a right to their opinons. I am fully prepared to stand by my previous rants on the subject. If a review opens with, "December Quinn thought she could pass this shit off as a story people might want to read, but we know it's The Worst Book Ever Written and she's a talentless hack with ugly pinkish hair," I'll take it on the chin (where the stress spot thankfully no longer rests). I sent it to people for reviews. My publishers have sent it to people for reviews. It's the name of the game, and I've sent it to some places where I highly respect their opinions and ability to express those opinions but where, also, I'm quite aware they get snarky. I love the snark. If they snark me, I asked for it, and it won't mean I think any less of them for it.

But that doesn't mean I'm not terrified, and hope hope hoping they don't snark it (too much) and call me a crapbag who only thinks she can string a couple of words together. I hope they don't laugh at me. I hope they don't make fun of me. I hope they love the book(s). I hope they love the characters and are entertained. That's the point, isn't it? If I was writing just for myself and not to entertain people I'd be writing Mary Sue fantasies about me and various comic book heroes/actors/Sid Vicious.

But there's no guarantees...so I'm very, very scared.