Catharsis

[kuh-thahr-sis]

noun, plural ca·thar·ses [kuh-thahr-seez]

1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

2. Medicine/Medical , purgation.

3. Psychiatry.

a. psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable affects.

b. discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation of symptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.

From here.  In relation to where I’m going with this, what I’m talking about is FEELING ALL THE FEELINGS EVER FELT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AT ONCE.

Which is pretty much how my whole week has been going.  How’s your week been?

Essentially it’s started out like this:  Hi!  It’s June, which puts me in the interesting and uncomfortable position of going to my beta readers and poking them on the shoulder asking them to maybe give me a little bit of feedback.  In other words, to reword my post into something more polite and send it off in an email to the list of like eleven who asked to read the currently raw manuscript.

And I have to do this because while I’d love to be able to, I really can’t afford to have a professional structural edit done.  Especially since a copy edit is not really optional (it is but it isn’t) and I’m looking to get some cash to my cover designer by the end of this month.

So that’s fun.

But every time I open up my email program this happens:

I think we’ve already gone over how easy it is for me to use reaction gifs.

It is literally exactly that.  I stare at it for about thirty seconds and close the window with a “NOPE!” face to rival NOPE faces.  I don’t want to bother people, even though the rational part of me knows better.  I have been told as much by the very people I’m terrified of bothering.  That doesn’t change the visceral reaction.

So I guess this post is more me working through how to get over myself and, y’know, bug the people who put themselves into a position to be bothered.  And I’m sure that, by the end of June (which was my deadline for myself because if I haven’t gotten something by then…) I’ll have finished feeling feelings and have a few less cares to give.  Hopefully that promised relief will come.

But.

Five times now I’ve sat down to do this necessary thing and five times I’ve immediately turned into Nathan Lane in The Birdcage.

Now did I say that just so I could link this .gif? The world may never know.

So it could go either way, really.

I fully accept that I am a complete and total pansy.  You guys should see the posts that don’t get published.  I have many many opinions, and many of them expressed with more four letter words than can be found on the Jolly Roger.  Blessing in disguise for you guys, really.

Of course, that could change once I get comfortable with the idea of saying things that might be wrong holy crap.

You keep using that word…