And having agonizing moments of certainty that everything I write is crap, interspersed with moments of less certainty of that fact.

Isn't that part of the fun of fest writing? :P I'm always ready to throw myself off a cliff at some point! (Which, no, never feels much fun.) But I've never seen you write crappy fic before so I can't see a reason why you would start now. :)

I'm not participating in any holiday fests this year, due to the stupid bout of tendonitis around sign-up time. So I'm playing with ideas for my wizard_love fic instead, and trying to see if I can make myself write and finish a holiday fic sans fest. After all, Christmas Eve is a deadline too! If only Santa could be as intimidating as an HP fest mod...