Terrified to read my latest revisions, terrified to admit terror to self-terrorized Self, I have: Vacuumed, cleaned the parakeet’s cage, vacuumed, watered outside, worked out (oh the lengths my terror shoves me), and almost resorted to brushing the dog. Made a smoothie. Stared at the slightly slimy bottom of the empty kiddie pool. Got a fat lip from pursing a kiss to the bird. Etc.

I have carted my extra-crucial and vital revised 3 pages near the beginning of my novel from the guest room (where the wireless printer lives) to the couch to the dining room table to a patio chair where they are a brown cushion’s display in breeze-less morning heat. I myself have returned to the couch, nursing my lip, listening to the dog woof deeply at the neighbor’s noisy electric fence as it closes. And I’m gazing at the back of the patio chair where my pages are being eyed by the kitten resembling a creamsicle.

How long can this go on? No, no, not much longer. I am a lucky woman to have time for avoiding my writing, but the truth is I don’t have time for avoiding my writing and this is sinking in. With the next sip of coffee.

Bravery is hard-won in me. Unless someone or something is threatening my child or animals. In which case, on some Harvard-like reality scale, revising should be a task in which there is no fear, ever. Life! Ha ha.  You kill me.

Going outside. Will sidle over to the patio chair. Going to beg my inner Tasmanian Devil (the red one consumed in its furious, effectively agitated tornado-self) for a visit. And then I’m going to walk on broken glass.