Because looking down, for me, means prayer. And because I may not believe in God, but I sure believe in family:

"Dinner!" call my parents, and we trundle into the kitchen. Allison dances, daddy teases, and Kenneth pesters, while I try to finish my chapter. The Griswold parade marches around the counter, filling plates with food and glasses with tea, finally settling in seats, to wait. Mom, always the slow-moving caboose, is finally ready, and sits.

A signal, and a hush, and we all bow our heads.

"Dear Lord, bless this food and this day as we are gathered here together. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen."

The ritual complete, we pick up our forks and tuck in.

Nova, a nice gentle scene, there. One thing, though: "parents" is a plural, "calls" is a singular. "Dinner!" call my parents. Two people performing the action.

Good point. Edited. Originally I formulated it '"Dinner!" calls my mom' and then changed it because, you know, my parents both cook in our modern family. But then, I might have screwed that one up anyway - sometimes subject-verb agreement eats my soul.

For me it's the whole tense thing. They were always my single biggest writing problem. (That one's on purpose.)

Anyone else go through that, "I'm writing a book? Who am I fucking kidding?"

It must be my awe of writers, people who make books happen. I feel unworthy, in some way. Or like everyone who says "no, you can totally do this" are just playing a mean joke on me. Does this feeling go away? Just me then?

No, it doesn't go away. At least not until you've finished at least one book. Probably not until you've sold at least one, held it in your hands and seen it on the shelves of the bookstore.

That doesn't mean you should stop doing it. And really? You're not exactly writing a book. You're...writing an essay. A collection of essays. Which will eventually become a book. But right now, you're writing another essay.

Right?

Anyone else go through that, "I'm writing a book? Who am I fucking kidding?"

Regularly. I almost never think, "I'm a moderately talented writer with a decent chance of selling someday." I alternate between "Who am I fucking kidding?" and "I am so brilliant! Wow! Look at me! With the brilliance!"

Allyson, I don't share the feeling, but I'm the minority. Pretty much every first-book writer I know - and I know a lot of them - goes through it with the first book, at least, and very often with several books thereafter. The only reason I don't get the feeling is because I wrote my first one (and it sucked, hoo boy, written entirely in Italian and as dopey and pretentious as it's humanly possible to get) at about 15. Got that whole "who am I kidding?" thing done young, and figured anything I wrote had to be better than that first one.

But unworthy - I don't get that. I can't grok it on any level. Unworthy of what? You have language, you have a way to channel experience, you write or you don't write. You aren't writing as a form of competition with anyone else, are you? It's all about what you have to say, what you have to share (in the case of nonfiction), a journey to be taken, a road you're offering to open up to fellow or sister travellers.

I hear that - "I feel unworthy" - sometimes, and I never get it. I especially hear it when writers are going from shorter pieces - fiction or non - to a collection or a full novel. But I don't understand. It's just writing - just, what we do.

So, why unworthy? What am I missing?

I wrote a book in the third grade, (about a little girl who gets accused of being a witch) and a play in the fourth (about teenagers' dating woes...teenagers played by dinosaurs). But that was back when at my age, I was the best writer amongst my peers. Now, it seems like writing us a thing done by people with monumental talent, like Olympians in a way.

Right?

I just got fantastic feedback I incorporated into one piece, and I'm in love with it. But the one I'm working on now has me insanely happy.