Nerves

Everybody gets 'em. Doesn't matter your lifestyle or profession—there's always something to be nervous about. I liked Patrick Rothfuss's blog post today about how he's feeling about the expectations for his second novel (expectations which are orders of magnitude higher than they were for his fantastically successful first novel). He describes a dream about the kickoff signing of his upcoming book tour:

[...] it was such a big event in my dream that the bookstore had brought in another author to do a signing before mine. Sort of like an opening act.

The opening act author was a weird cross between Tobias Buckell and some guy I knew in grad school. He got a pretty good turnout for his signing, about 40 people. A respectable number.

But when he was done reading and signing books, all those people left. Nobody stayed around for my signing. None of my fans showed up. The store was pretty much empty. There was just a podium and ranks and ranks of empty chairs.

When it became clear that nobody cared I was there, I walked around the store for a while, more than slightly depressed and despondent. Then I found a quiet corner, covered myself up with my coat, and fell asleep on the floor.

When I woke up, the store was dark and I realized they’d forgotten about me and closed the store, locking me in. So I got up and wandered around the dark, empty bookstore, all alone….

I like his work quite a bit, and I'm personally very excited to read the new book, called The Wise Man's Fear. I know I'm not alone, so I don't think Mr. Rothfuss's tour will go that way. Still, it's one of those things. It doesn't matter where you are in your life, nerves can creep up, and you just have to press ahead anyway.