Huh...

I'm feeling particularly worthless today. Work isn't as fulfilling as it sometimes is, but I rarely feel like I've done anything at all after a week's work, so that isn't saying much. As a wise person once said, "a nutless monkey could do your job" (and that quote still manages to make me laugh even though I'm mad). That's how it is for me. There are people all around me, doing meaningful important work in our office, but I'm the superfluous one, the one that doesn't belong among such intelligent, creative, and thoughtful people. I am a mere grunt in a room of giants.

Thoughts going through my mind:
I'm a glorified babysitter.
My presence here changes nothing.
If I was gone, no one would notice or care.
I'm being paid to do meaningless busywork.
I don't have a real job.
I am unnecessary.
There are better people out there who could do this job and give it meaning.
No one wants to hear my opinions because they have no value.

There's nothing I can do at the moment except keep accepting my own irrelavence in this work environment. It's probably a good thing I don't have a car right now. When I feel like this, I just want to get as far away from home as possible. I'd drive until I felt better. And that sometimes takes days.

Complications

Now that I've endured some real criticism of my story, it really made me step back and take a look at the novel as a whole. And there is a lot of sloppiness, to be sure.

Truthfully, there aren't any gaping plotholes (which I am grateful for) or unrealistic characters or stale writing. A big problem is that it's too wordy. I talk too much, a fact which many can attest to, and so, thus, I write too much. That wouldn't be bad but I'd argue that at least 30% to 40% of what I've written is kind of unnecessary.

So I've obviously gone back to the drawing board, back to the beginning to see what works and what doesn't, but now that I've gotten through the "untouchable" stage with Blood Pledge, the stage in which everything must stay the way it is to preserve how 'finished' it is, pretty much everything is up for cutting. I cut 10 pages from it not too long ago (like 10,000 words, friends) and while I bite my lip at the loss, I don't know if it's worse off. Or better off.

I'm quite confused right now...