The Deep Dives are Drowning Me

Is this how most books die, trapped between fear and grandiosity? Stuck in a state of complexity outside of one's comfort zone?

I find myself in a conundrum. I know what I need to do and there isn't much left at this stage. Beyond this point I can start thinking of an editor and cover art. I have an artist in mind for the cover art and need to commission it. Finding an editor is intimidating but, I think I can find one who's comfortable with new authors in the SciFi/Fantasy realm.

My main character has a portion of an arc left to write which led me to consider the character arc of everyone, again. That led to analyzing different metrics for looking at character arcs and to start reading to ensure I hadn't missed any smaller characters.

I'm building a bit of a social network presence. I am terrible at sales. Terrible at promoting myself at all, actually. I need to work through that, find a way. I'll rely heavily on social media if I self-publish and an authentic presence that isn't four minutes old seems like it would be useful.

In the end, I don't write at all which is what I really need to do. Why? Fear. Outright, abject fear. In another life my creative writing faired well, resulting in accolades from an audience which expected very different things from me but, that was eons ago. No one has read my work beyond those days. The thought of it makes me feel... frail.

Frailty is important. It tells you when you are near your limits and fear is an important indicator for that. Unfortunately, that is often only effective within known limits. In the unknown, that fear can become an anchor, even moreso paralyzing if you think that there are monsters. So I search for monsters. I look high and I look low but I find only my own frailty. And another couple hours are gone.

I wonder if, to finish the book, I need to let it break me. Carelessly throw aside fears and frailties even to my own destruction which, on thinking about it, just might be a bit of hyperbole.

It's either that or I just need a day off.