Where did the year go?

A friend told me that this time of year, when November is slowly drifting to the ground and being crumpled under our feet or raked into piles of past days, is when we start to be hard on ourselves at the seeming lack of accomplishments, questioning the decisions we've made.

The end of December comes on like an avalanche. The days of our arbitrary calendar, their weight pushing down and over us, covers us in regret.

My regret? Not writing more new stuff and submitting and publishing the shit out of them.

I have had only one new story that I wrote and submitted this year. It will be published next January. I should be happy. It's a good story and it has found a home...but it's only one...in an entire year. The other story that I had published this year was written last fall and it was to be the start of a new collection that for some reason I can't seem to get off the ground.

This new collection, written in the haze of NaNoWriMo last year, has been a bitch to work on. I can't seem get it to where I think it's worth submitting. I have been doubting my abilities as a writer all year just trying to work on just one story. Just one. I opened it yesterday to look at it and I am very worried that it's all just garbage and not worth anyone's time, including myself. That's not a good place to be when trying to write or get published.

This year besides the publication of one short story and the acceptance of another, I have had two works put into print, one in a yearly anthology and the other in a celebration of women writers.

These are good things and I should definitely be happy but still there is that nagging self-doubt as always...sometimes the woe is me shtick gets old, doesn't it?

This NaNoWriMo has me challenging myself with a novel but it's not going very well. I have great ideas but I think it's lacking something and I can't put my finger on it. Sometimes I wonder if these NaNoWriMos are just garbage out and that nothing publishable will come from them and that scares me a little. I am beyond my comfort zone and that should be good, right?