One of my principles is that writing should be fun. It is also, inevitably, frustrating, challenging, surprising, revelatory, therapeutic, disappointing, embarrassing, and rewarding. In short, like all human activities, a mix of the mundane and the marvelous. However, it’s a creative act, and therefore can be interfered with and even halted by negative emotions. In particular, writers are vulnerable to fear, so I’m taking on that emotion for a series of posts.
From idea development through to signing off on galleys, I've seen writers twisted out of shape by fear. Fear can cause them to look for distractions, including research, housework, and alcohol. Fear can become anger leading to battles with editors or agents or collaborators. Sometimes fear just leaves writers frozen, looking at a blank page with no idea (or too many ideas) on how to move forward.
Through my teaching, workshopping with writers, and my personal experiences, I put together a list of seven fears that can cut into productivity or quality for writers. These are:
Fear of performing — Performance anxiety doesn’t need an audience. All by yourself, when you face a blank screen or a fresh sheet of paper, you can be overwhelmed by an sense you won’t be able to put words together that make sense, change minds, or move readers. There are special instances of this, such as the inability to respond to a pressing deadline. Or to be funny on command.
Fear of commitment — Every decision (and there are many in writing (precludes other choices). To work on a short story is to not work on a feature film script. When you select a protagonist, a hundred characters in your head, vying for attention, are silenced. The direction of a story can be changed by a scene, a paragraph, a line of dialogue, or a single word.
Fear of qualifications — Who gave you permission to tell the story you’ve chosen? Are you the right author, the best author? Do you have the right education? Are you blinded by your own perspective or guilty of cultural appropriation? Hasn’t it already been done better by Shakespeare, Flannery O’Connor, or Mickey Spillane?
Fear of conflict — Will this upset people? Will you cause your character to suffer? Is your protagonist too mean? Could anyone love your flawed hero? Isn’t this going too far?
Fear for your reputation — What if your mom read this? Won’t people think this happened to you? How could you have such evil thoughts?
Fear of pain — Won’t this trigger a dormant trauma? Is the real story underneath this safe scene too much for you? Will writing this scene give you nightmares? Can you spend months or years living in a story that makes you feel awful? Can you handle the truth?
Fear of failure — What if no one understands this story? What if it bores them? What if it is misread? What if the story comes across as incompetent, foolish or trite? What if the story succeeds and changes your life?
Fear is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's a genuine warning that it's not time yet to move on with the story. Or it could be that a poor choice was made along the way, that needs to be corrected. I've had times when fear has been a good indicator that it was time to take a break or get some emotional distance from a scene or a sequence. It is even possible, in cases where someone else is involved in the creative work, that some sort of misunderstanding, incompatibility, or betrayal may be at hand.
Listening to fear can be smart at times. It's worthwhile when writers find themselves seeking distractions or blocked or bewildered by the possibilities in front of them or in conflict with others that they set aside time to calmly explore what's going on. For me, that usually means just writing down words about what I'm feeling and my concerns. Eventually this leads to articulating specifics and creating a clearer picture of what's happening and how I need to respond. Sometimes this validates the fear. More often, it directs me toward putting anxieties into a context that helps me move the writing forward.
For each the seven fears, I'll provide examples and descriptions aimed at recognizing the fears that can hamper your writing. In some cases, fear can hide behind other emotions, like anger, so I’ll discuss ways to trace back to the scary stuff and isolate what’s prompting fear and what risks it’s highlighting. With a clearer idea of what’s going on (not always simple, since some fears combine or show up in unexpected circumstances), I’ll offer some options, even possible solutions. Finally, for those who want to be resilient writers, I’ll point to exercises and habits that can help prevent fear from taking hold.
Writers talk a lot about fear. Symptoms include complaints about the doubt monster and blocks. The rewriting blues. Abandoned manuscripts. Carping about editors and unfair reviews. Jealousy. And escaping through distractions, addictions, and surrender. I think every writer needs the support of other people. It can be friends or relatives or other artists. It may be a therapist. But I think an essential element is fresh perspectives on fears writers face, and that’s what this series will offer.
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