Book Proposal Blues: I'm a Negative Self-Talk Nancy

I'm working on a teacher book proposal after over a year of contemplating whether to send my work to some publishers or self-publish. I've done a lot of research on self-publishing and it is way too expensive for me. Sure, I could put it all on a credit card and cross my fingers that I would be able to use the sales to pay back the credit card debt, but Jenny don't play that college way anymore. That "I'm just gonna put it on a credit card and pay it back as soon as the cash flow increases" way. I've did my research and found five publishers who might be interested in my work. I'll send it their way and see what happens. If I sit on this work for much longer 1) someone else is going to publish it or 2) I'm going to lose my steam.

This is a little glimpse into my mind as I attempt my first book proposal ever:

• Read the proposal guidelines from each publisher. Think, "Oh, dude, I've got this."
• Read the proposal guidelines again. Think, "Pshhhh, I'm dumb. This be too hard."
• Read the proposal guidelines again. Think, "Oh em gee. I can do this. I'm getting started."
• Print the proposal guidelines. Write all over the guidelines to make sure I get what I'm supposed to do.
• Think, "I should have tried to publish some articles on this, but how do you publish articles that are the length of a book because that's how long it would have to be to explain what I'm trying to explain." 
• Google "how to write an academic book proposal" and "academic book proposal templates."
• Get started, even though I have no idea what I'm doing.
• Think, "Ugh, this is so much work. Everyone gets rejected their first time and do I want to do this much work for rejection?" 
• Eat some string cheese. 
• Start again, thinking, "Listen woman, if you don't do this you'll wonder 'what if' forever. So just do it. God."
• Sigh in exasperation.
• Eat some Haribo Sour Spaghetti. 
• Move computer away from the kitchen. 
• Write an email to the acquisitions editor with all of my unanswered questions. Get way TMI with the email. 
• Contemplate not sending the email because I don't want to get laughed at. 
• Send the email. 
• Walk around the house looking at how dusty everything is. 
• Sit down at the computer to start chapter summaries. 
• Repeat this mind cycle for every part of the book proposal.