Shortly after we moved into our current home, a commotion in the downstairs bathroom ensued when my kids discovered a very large spider in the bathtub. My husband wasn’t home at the time, so the three of us, me and two teenagers, spent the better part of an hour running around looking for weapons with which to fight the hairy little beast. There was much screaming.
Spiders render me fairly useless. I can say in all honestly, I’m afraid of them, and I probably always will be. I’m okay with that. Overcoming my fear of spiders isn’t on my list of priorities, and I think they like it that way.
Since I started writing for publication, though, there were plenty of fears I had to make it a priority to overcome. The first was fear of rejection. Getting over the anxiety of letting someone else not only see my work but judge it was the first hurdle to getting published. It was probably the hardest and certainly well worth the considerable effort it took. Next was the fear of a bad review. They say you’re not a real writer until you’ve gotten a one-star review, so you might as well just gear up and accept it. You rant and rave [to yourself] and then put it out of your mind. After that, comes the fear that you can’t maintain whatever success you’ve achieved. What if you only have one good book in you? That fear is a little harder to overcome because it recurs after the second book and the third and every one after that. The only way I’ve found to deal with that fear is to ignore it and press on. Finally, I’m fairly certain I also suffer from a fear of success. I often wonder if I subconsciously sabotage myself so that I won’t have to deal with the increasing demands of writing. I’m not sure what to do about that fear – I doubt it will succumb to a broom and a can of RAID like a spider will.
What fears have you overcome? What fears are you content to live with?
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FYI - Today is the 'official' launch day of Book 2 of the Spring River Valley Series. FIXED UP IN FEBRUARY is already available! To help get you started on the series, Book 1, JILTED IN JANAURY is FREE for the next three days!
I'm still looking for today's winner of an ARC of AN AFFAIR IN APRIL
Go HERE to find out how you can get one!
4 comments:
Great post, Clarice. Allison Brennan did a similar post this week over at Murder She Writes - which prompted me to write one over at The Unpublished Writers' Guide. Must be the week for addressing and overcoming fears. =o)
I definitely empathize with all those writing fears. They're a lot harder to kill than a bug. But I'm still at the fear of rejection stage. And I'm pretty sure I have that 'fear of success' thing going on, too.
Congrats on your official launch day!
Ahhh, if only we could rid ourselves of our fears with a can of Raid....life would be so much easier. I've contended with the fears you've listed and now that I'm getting into the self-publishing game, I'm battling the "what the heck do you think you're doing?" fear.
Congrats on Fixed Up in February!
Thanks, Ladies! JB, the 'what the heck do you think you're doing' fear is a tough one to overcome. I just plug my ears and sing "lallalallala la la la la"
Thanks, Ladies! JB, the 'what the heck do you think you're doing' fear is a tough one to overcome. I just plug my ears and sing "lallalallala la la la la"
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