Comparing you work to other does not help.

I always feel rather bad that my books don't have more conflict. I mean big conflict-guns blazing, heads rolling, kind of conflict. I read lots of books high on adventure and body counts but when I actually sit down to write my work is inevitably a little quieter and a little smaller than that. And I start to feel bad about that. Maybe if my work doesn't have a lot of violence it won't cut through the noise. Maybe without enough action readers will lose interest.

Setting aside those thoughts is sometimes hard to do. Especially in genre fiction where despite a longing for new visions there also seems to be a deep abiding set of expectations. More so that in literary fiction.

I think I'm going to invent a new genre :) LOL! It's called un-epic fantasy and it's stories that are the slice of life, day to day workings of people's lives but set in a fantasy world. No armies marching, no swords hacking limbs, no massing invasion of Orcs or trolls. Just people, who, despite the local wizard/dragon/vampire/werewolf pack, still have to live their lives.