My husband has been reading The Book. Every time he laughs it feels like a hundred bees are trying to escape out of the corners of my mouth (in a good way!), but in between laughs, the brain weasels burrow their way in and set up shop in my head to dispense fears like gumballs:

• What if it’s so bad he throws up a tiny bit?

• What if it’s so bad he has to do that thing where he grits his teeth and tells me he really likes the font I used because that’s the only good thing about the book?

• What if it’s so bad he falls asleep while reading it? (This fear is not unfounded; when we were first dating he asked me to read aloud the book I wrote for my senior thesis, but every time I started, he fell asleep.)

• What if it’s so bad he has to rip up every sheet of paper and eat each individual piece to ensure a physical copy of it will no longer exist in the world? And then what if he discovers he’s developed a taste for paper and it becomes like a whole paper-eating thing?

• What if it’s so bad he divorces me?

• What if it’s not funny?

• What if it’s not funny? This one’s on here twice because that’s how strongly the fear permeates every part of my being. My dumb brain tells me that if I can’t make people laugh, then I have nothing to offer.

• What if it’s too funny, at the expense of plot?

• What if it’s so bad he straight-up dies?

• What if the pacing’s bad, the hook uninteresting, the diction uninspired, the plot confusing, the characters two-dimensional, the theme trite, the tone self-indulgent, the whole thing such an insult to the written word that the universe itself conspires to exorcise itself of this monstrosity by whisking the entire house away in a tornado that carries it 1,088 miles southeast to the Bermuda Triangle and none of us is ever heard from again? WHAT THEN?

• What if he’s lying and doesn’t actually like the font I used? It’s Book Antiqua! I just prefer it to Times New Roman! I can change it! I’ll change it right now! I’m so sorry!

I try to remind the weasels that this is very low stakes. Bill is legally required to like everything I write (and to offer me a bite of whatever he’s eating—unless it’s a banana, the devil’s fruit. It’s in our post-nup [that’s what I call the slightly rumpled paper towel to which I periodically add stipulations, such as “Bill agrees to give Carrie all the leftover Sour Patch Kids from Halloween.” I cannot overstate how poorly it would hold up in court. It’s not even signed. It’s just a list of demands from a crazy person]).

But the brain weasels are persistent, and ubiquitous. And so I would like to humbly offer a few suggestions you can use to quiet your own weasels, if only for a brief moment:

• Have you tried just not having self-doubt? You should try it sometime; it really helps.

• Recite an encouraging mantra to yourself, for instance: I AM A PERSON. WHO IS PRETTY GOOD AT SEVERAL THINGS. AND EVEN IF I AM NOT SUPER-GREAT AT ANY ONE THING, I AM STILL. A PERSON. WHO DESERVES…THINGS. You know. Something like that. Keep it light and snappy.

• Turn some music up so loud you can’t hear the brain weasels anymore. Then just scream and scream and scream.

• Try burning a weasel in effigy. Not a real one, of course—think of the smell! And the various animal cruelty, environmental, and public health violations!

• Embrace the weasel within. Get yourself one of these weasel onesies (unless you already own one), practice your weasel squeaks and trills and barks and hisses, then dig yourself a nice, cozy burrow where you can spend the whole winter warm and safe from those terrible, fearsome owls. The brain weasels will never think to look for you there.