Staffing season is upon us. The networks are starting to announce who they're brining back next year, so Jennise is dutifully making notes and sending me call assingments. On today's list: Cold Case, Criminal Minds and NCIS (CBS shows).

And I once again face the Dreaded Telephone Call syndrome. Symptoms include irrationalizations, procrastination, a slightly sinking feeling in the gut followed by self-flagellation, impatience and mantras about it just being a stupid phone call. Then I realized why I constantly go through this.

Rejection.

For some reason, I have a deeply-ingrained "thing" (call it fear if you want) about rejection. And I don't think it's about not being good enough -- I have talent, I can write good story. It's about not doing something *right.* I've always been a toe-the-line gal. Follow the rules. Do it properly the first time. And a "no" means I didn't do something right. I didn't talk the right talk, I didn't write the right story, I didn't call at the right time, I am not doing the right thing. And here, "no" just means "no."

Fear sucks.

Persistence is overcoming fear. Persistence is the key to success. And maybe I'm using self-analysis as another procrastination tool.

I'm off to make some phone calls.