Writer's Remorse?

I don't know how else to describe what I've been feeling the last few days. I once read an interview with Johnny Depp wherein he said he didn't ever like to watch his own movies because he didn't like to see himself act. I kind of feel like that.

I have had the ebook version of Monsters and Mormons in my possession for a couple days now, but I have yet to read any of it. I am kind of shy to see what kind of stuff my work is sitting next to. I know a lot of the contributors are already fairly well-known and established, whereas I am the newbie. Where all of the other contributors are probably having lunch meetings with their agents, I am typing this on my couch in my pajamas. At 2 pm.

You would think that the fact something I wrote is in the same volume with more highbrow stuff should make me feel proud or accomplished, but instead it makes me want to hide my face and crawl in a hole. I guess I'm afraid people will read my story and think, "Pfft. I don't know why they included this one. Plus there is a horrible grammatical error on page seven."

The editors are organizing a lot of events to hype the book - book signings, and the like. And it's kind of fun that I will get to participate in that. I keep telling myself that I need to write more. The problem is, though, that I don't think of myself as a writer. At this stage of my life, I am a mom first and foremost, albeit a mom who also writes.

When I write, I don't care about being supremely "literary," or even sophisticated. I just like to write things that I myself like to read. My writing group, 3 liberals and a conservative, started meeting again (we are all of us moms with busy schedules) and for our writing exercise this week everyone wrote things that made sense, except for me. I wrote about a fictional senate meeting wherein representatives were debating the constitutionality of a bill regulating the use of heavy cream as jet pack fuel.

Anyway, just because I am shy to read the book doesn't mean anyone else should be. Here's a podcast that features Theric Jepson, one of the editors, talking about the anthology.