Author photo Anna Louise Lucia

I’m rebelling.

Us less-confident types expend a lot of energy on positive affirmations, calming pep-talks and, occasionally, a lot of money on our alcoholic beverage of choice (mine’s white wine, but I’m always happy to make friends with a champagne cocktail or a margarita). We aspire to be positive, well-groomed, well-balanced individuals who have conquered their self-defeating behaviours and spring, light-footed, through a world of flowers and dreams in full bloom.

Reality falls somewhat short of that aspiration.

Instead, we feel more like we’re hanging on to our sanity with our ragged , unpainted fingernails, as we stagger, creased and unwaxed, from one near-crisis to another. Flowers in bloom? HA! The cat’s been sick on the carpet again…

All that energy spent on trying not to say, “Gad, I suck!”

I am reclaiming that energy. I am embracing my suckage! My suckness is an integral part of the person I am, and an irrefutable part of my mental processes!

I had my first book published this week. No amount of snide self-doubt or first-timer ignorance can take away from how truly, wonderfully, f a n t a s t i c that feels. Seven years of hard work in the face of occasionally overwhelming odds, and I can hold my book in my hand and know that somewhere out there, it’s being taken down from shelves and bought and read.

And you know what? That book doesn’t suck. It really doesn’t – reviews, editors, readers are telling me so (one particular reviewer begs to differ, but – heh - what do they know? *wink* ).

But it did suck. Oh yes. And the process it went through as a result of that – it’s Stages of Suck – brought it to publication in the form it’s in now.

If my first draft hadn’t sucked, I wouldn’t have rewritten it. If that rewrite hadn’t unbalanced the ending, I wouldn’t have changed that. And if that change hadn’t made the middle less-than-its-best, I wouldn’t have reworked that, either.

Its suckness has made it what it is.

Rather like me, in fact.

You see, I quite like me. I don’t say that in a, “I am fabulous, dahlink,” sense (please note the creased, unwaxed, barely-sane notes above, which are 100% accurate), but in a, “I find me quite a nice person to spend time with,” sense. And harassed and un-manicured as I am, I retain enough sense to know my suckage is an integral part of the me I quite like.

It’s quite a revelation.

And like all good revelations, it has to be shared. So, my fellow suck-sisters, throw off the shackles of the hated positive affirmation oppression, and embrace your suckage.

To paraphrase the sainted Yoda, “Use the Suck, Luke.”

So, tell me, what was your latest, “I suck,” moment, and how can you embrace it? C’mon now… be brave….

Run Amongst Thorns cover art

Anna Louise Lucia’s first novel, Run Among Thorns , a romantic suspense published by Medallion Press, is out now!

In a crisis moment of her life, Jenny Waring did something exceptional.

She killed three armed men.

“Excellent… an all-round compelling escape.” 4 ½ stars, Romantic Times