Showing Vs. Telling.

[Saint]

Recently, I feel like I've been getting worse at writing, and I think it's do to the fact that when I read through my work, it fells very 'telly'.  Give it to straight, no softening it up.  Have I always been this bad?

   Lizzy resorted to pushing the rest of her food around the plate as she looked to the lunch queue where Tei stood, starting to regret snapping at him.  At the time, it just seemed to her like there was something else to the statement.  Like he just didn’t want Alex talking to Lizzy.

   Alex was being nice enough to her, but she wasn’t the type of person to talk.  All through her life, she’d been pushed aside.  Tatter and Tei were the only ones she could remember who she’d never really argued with before, and now that had been blown because of a well-meant comment and her own stupidity.

There's an extract of the last chapter I wrote, which seems to be the worst offender, but I'm unsure if it's just that chapter that's bad, or if the whole thing is the same, I just never noticed it.  I'd read back through it, but it's almost 50,000 words, and I need to write.

I put too much pressure on myself, just to see it all fail.

Right, none of that made sense.

1) Is my writing bad?
2) Has it always been this bad, or is it just getting worse recently?
3) Is it Telling, or am I imagining it?

[Phoenix]

1.No.
2.As above. You're getting better.
3.You're imagining it.

[Chinaren]

I admit I haven't been following Tatter very closely, but I don't believe your writing is bad, or getting worse.  I'm sure it's improving.

As for the TvS, I think I did point out some of this in the review of the Owl chapter.  That said, the example  you've quoted above is not what I would call telling. 

Telling mainly relates to actions or describing environments I think. 

Her hair was blond and long.   ...is telling.

She pushed her long hair back over her shoulders, the locks gleaming gold in the sunlight...  ...is (horribly written) showing.

Your quote comes across as a person sitting and thinking to herself at the lunch table, and as such is quite acceptable.  IMHO anyway. 

[Hedra]

Rather than worrying about too much telling, perhaps what you should be thinking more about is whether you have the balance right. Each affects the pace and impact of the scene and its events in different ways. For example, 'telling' a fight scene might have your readers yawning, but 'showing' somebody brushing their teeth in the morning might be considered OTT.

There's no easy way to figure it out (at least not that I've found yet) but reading the entire thing probably does come into it at some stage.

I have the sense that you are rushing with this project - do you have a deadline to keep to? If not, then don't rush. Letting it settle for a few weeks or months and then going through it will let you see it with a fresh pair of eyes.

[Saint]

I had a deadline; wanted to get it done by my birthday on September 23rd, but last night, shortly after I posted this topic, I killed that deadline and set one for Christmas to take the pressure off a little.

It's nice to know it was just in my mind.