Fear of writing is this.
Forsaking Energy Against Risks.
Remember this as you write today. Writing is a risk. It will always be a risk! When you take something from your head, and push it thought the kinetic fury of your hands, that is a risk.
Plotting and planning cannot compensate for everything. Although, that is a good strategy. But, as trust the wisdom of Nora Roberts:
“You cannot edit a blank page.”
Don’t let the fear win, beloveds.
Write. And keep writing.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
What would you write if you were never afraid?
What you would write if you believed you could?
What would it be like to write without fear?
Today…use that fear—and write anyway.
Today, I want you to channel the apprehension, the doubt, the fear of failure and create. After all, writing is alchemy! You are changing something that is not into something that is.
Fear is the roadblock to creativity. But if you harness it? You can grab stars.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Genre. Troupes. Ideal. Retellings. Protag. Antag. Plot.
Falling action. Rising action. Climaxes.
It can be utterly maddening and terrifying to be a writer. There are so many opposing forces at work which would drive you to burn everything in your immediate vicinity which would would lend yourself to writing!
There are certain things about writing which indeed are immutable. Grammar. Spelling. Syntax. Punctuation. Spacing. Margins. Just like with breaking the fourth wall, it can feel sometimes as if writing is less an exercise in creativity and more like a practice in regurgitation. It can be scary to go into a traditional genre, or specific character troupe and feel that you cannot draw an audience.
From that doubt, it is easy (or even expected) that here is where you quit. Here is where you decide whether or not you will trust your talent and imagination. Here is where you will be told that you don’t have what it takes to write, to pursue this as a career. Or, as Anne Rice was told,
“What makes you think you be a writer?”
Let me tell you, it is this fear that kills writers. It rips words and will out of you…giving nothing back.
As a writer, as an editor, I cannot prevent this from happening to you. This is the fear every writer, everyone that desires to write must overcome.
Word by word. Letter by letter. Thought by thought. Contend with the doubt, so that you may know it, and overcome it.
[Image from Google]
There is a fate worse than writer’s block. It’s empty pages–and having nothing to say.
It is this feeling that everything is still. Everything is quiet. There is nothing in your imagination that is stirring. That stillness is disquieting.
Audre Lorde said that this time comes for all writers. This lull, this disquiet, where the the words don’t come–when writing is like breathing she says. I make mention of this in my book, WriteLife. Click here to get a copy.
Writing is a demanding mistress, beloved.
To chase it with power and passion, there will come the still moments. The moments when touching the gift seems further than it ever was. You have to know this, prepare for this.
The duration for this is unique for every writer. For me, it came after a traumatic breakup. The lull was three years and more. It was only when I was in a healthy place again did the words return.
I believe this is the secret fear all writers have. It’s different than the recovery you need, or give yourself after completing a book. It’s beyond writer’s block. It’s not a block at all–that’s just it. It’s a barrenness. Having everything and nothing. Having the desire to say–nothing. Yet, as a writer–you wanna say everything!
Madness.
I wish that I could tell you a tip or tool to get through this certain scary part of your writing career. Yet, I don’t.
What I will tell you is this, which is scary in itself: embrace the lull.
That’s right–EMBRACE the lull. It will come. I don’t know any writer–whether they be a newbie, practicing amateur, indie author or a NYT Best Seller–whom hasn’t had a lull. They happen.
What you can do is enjoy the time you aren’t writing. Catch up on your sleep. Learn to garden. Take more walks. As a writer, you are called to record the world. This means every now and then you have to live, to develop, your life beyond creating the lives you create for the people in your head.
[images from Quotefancy and Google]
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