Fear of...Success?

Baroy says I'm a freak. Maybe I am. But here I am, two days away from the final deadline on my book. And I'm chugging along. I'll have all three chapters ready by midnight Thursday, which is the official deadline, if not before. And if I don't have the rest of the odds and ends ready then, they'll be ready very soon thereafter.

So why is it that I'm in a total panic? And I mean real, medical, panic. Hands shaking, fingers tingling, chest tight. Like last year's Stalker-induced insanity, but muted a bit. It feels, to me, like I'm afraid. Of finishing. Of finishing this book that I've been almost literally dying to have off my plate. That is crazy, isn't it. It's freaky, just like Baroy says. And yet, I think that's what it may be. As I watch the page count tick upwards while I write, I get more and more nervous, more and more tight. Things aren't flowing more easily right now, they're...well, I feel literarily constipated, to be honest. I'm really having to push and strain. (Yes, I'll stop now. It was a forced analogy to begin with, and it's starting to make me roll my eyes, and since I'm the one writing it...)

Have any of you writerly types been though this? Not wanting, really, to finish, but not really wanting to keep writing either? I think it's a control thing. I know that the manuscript is imperfect, and once it's done, I have to accept that. Or maybe that's just pretentious and grandiose of me, to even imply that I could create perfection, or to think that I should. I do know, however, that I'm almost always disappointed by the difference between the initial vision in my head and the reality of what I produce. I think that dichotomy is inevitable, especially when you're writing nonfiction, where you're bound by facts and the quality of the information you manage to gather and, in this case, by time. But still, I guess I'm just feeling like I don't want to let go. I don't want it to be finished, because then it will be out there, flawed, not everything I'd wanted it to be.

On the other hand, I'm proud of the work I've done. It's been a huge undertaking, and I'm at the end, and I'm going to make it...and 'they' say it's good. Some of 'them' say it's really, really good. So i should be happy. I should be looking forward to the end of the week, when I'm free again, when I can be a real person who spends time with her kids and does laundry and hangs out on the weekend. And watches TV! And reads books! And does her tatting, which she loves!

So why aren't I excited? Why am I stressed? Why am I anxious? Why do I feel so conflicted?

Oh, yeah, I forgot. Because I'm a freak.

Sigh.