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.

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).

Twenty bucks says either or both was better than my "Italian hippies in a commune contemplate their navels" crapfest from 1968. Make that thirty bucks.

Now, it seems like writing us a thing done by people with monumental talent, like Olympians in a way.

I don't know - I mean, at the LA F2F last year, I got introduced to my friend Ayelet's husband. He happens to be, in my estimation, the world's best writer in the English language right now; he's also one of those Olympians, the certifiable kind, with a Pulitzer for literature. I sure as hell don't see myself as any kind of Olympian, but I don't see him - this is Michael Chabon - as being godlike, either. So I therefore was not as gobsmacked as might have been expected of me. He was just an incredibly brilliant, totally cool guy, with a grip on language that happens to make me very happy.

But Olympians? Huh. Nah.

So which essay did you get the great feedback on? Can you share?

My book in the fourth grade was all about children who somehow got into a magical land with talking horses. Like Narnia, except that none of the other Beasts did any Talking, because at age 9 I was all about the horsies.

In high school I regularly wrote the first three chapters or so of books about girls who played clarinet or flute (I played sax) and dated the trumpet section leader or a star football player other than the QB (I was madly in love with the drum section leader). These girls were always petite (I'm tallish), with long, curly black or red hair (mine is straight and brown) and blue or green eyes (mine are brown).

I still tend to give my heroines MarySueish hair. I haven't gotten over my envy of natural curls.

Can't share yet. I got permission to send it to ita for feedback for revisions, which I made tonight. Waiting waiting waiting.

Heh. Insanely happy feedback? Is all good.

Me for Avonex and sleep. 'Night, writer people.

I wrote stories for my brothers and sisters all the time, and I wrote the church Christmas and Easter plays every year between the ages of about 16 and... huh..last time was in my early 30s. I also wrote and directed a play in high school. I don't know how I just forgot that stuff.

I've been writing since...ever. But because it was something I could do, I haven't always valued it. But in the back of my mind, I expected a TV series by now.(I'm like an underachieving narcissist...underachieving at being a narcissist.)

Right now, I feel like I've given up ficcing Joss Whedon and Levinson and Fontana et al to fic Raymond Chandler, Dennis Lehane and Sue Grafton. And there's stuff in there my friend Donna told me not to tell, but I didn't exactly, just made up the details because she didn't give me many.

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.

Okay, maybe this is just me but I think that this is the important part. Rather than freaking yourself out about whether or not you're worthy to write a book, why not try not thinking about the book thing? The writing itself is the only part you control. So enjoy the process and worry about the rest when you're done.