I think I'm experiencing post-con letdown--something lots of people have mentioned in the past, but which I hadn't ever had before. Work is going fine (high-pressure at the moment, but basically fine), and only good things have been happening here (barring the usual story rejections, etc.), but I keep finding myself feeling really sad and dispirited anyway.

Part of it is simple tiredness--I was ill before the con, got better during it but barely slept, and I haven't been sleeping well this week. And part of it--as bizarre and irrational as I know this is--is just nervousness over the good things people said about my writing! Whenever people compliment my writing, I get really giddy for a little while, and then my emotions spin down to the opposite extreme and I get really insecure again. I think I'm subconsciously preparing myself for the Inevitable Letdown (which my imagination just knows is on the way, with all its armies of darkness coming to stamp down all of my pretensions...). Oh well.

Neuroses aside, it's been a pretty good week. I finished re-reading Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, one of my favorite novels ever, and read Delia Sherman's wonderful Through a Brazen Mirror for the first time. Now I'm really enjoying the last of my three con book purchases, Naomi Mitchison's Travel Light, a 1950s kids' novel
(well, kinda) that's just really lovely.

After lots and lots of spinning around in circles, I've decided that I just haven't even considered the right title for my Vienna novel yet. As sad as this is, I think I'm going to have to trunk the whole "Requiem" concept for now (or at least save it for my future Mozart novel!), because it makes the novel sound....well...not like a Fun Novel, really! So now I'm back to Square One, and trying to reassure myself with the fact that I didn't come up with the real title for Masks & Shadows until I was 375 ages into the book. Still, being me, I keep worrying about it!