I named it: this thing called artist hysteria. That's what I kept thinking as I walked in the woods this morning. I get it when someone critiques my work and this praise junkie doesn't get her fix. So I panic. I go over my words, exhausted, at the end of the night. My belief is, if I don't create something brilliant, someone will take this all away from me. This is ludicrous. But it's real and it usually happens when I've been away from Poet mind or Novel mind or any time of creative mind, as I have been, to get make some money. I scramble to get back in. I try and meditate and nothing happens. I don't reach deep places; my breath is shallow. I read some other people's poetry. I sniff at their deep worlds. I fumble with familiar words. Come up short. Keep at it, you moron, Ego says. So I do, I start to put words together and the hysteria dissolves.