If you want to write STRONG, How You Write EARLY is EVERYTHING. It’s your heart and soul. Your belief in yourself. Your confidence that YOU CAN do this crazy hard creative thing, again and again with each new project.
It never gets easier–trusting that you can. SO… It’s time to accept the doubt as part of your job, don’t feed it with your limited stores of energy, and GET ON WITH IT!
How to explain to the uninitiated how planning and prepping and early drafting for a new novel feels???
It’s like finding out you’re pregnant, I guess, and wondering what your new baby will be like. Or graduating from college, hoping and dreaming about that first job you’re finally starting… But are you ready? Or meeting the person you think will be your soul mate, and wondering if your life together could really be that amazing.
Or, if you’re an angsty writer… Will what you’re about to do totally suck eggs?
Here’s how the fear sinks its talons into even the most experienced of us.
I’ve written 27 novels and am a success as a commercial fiction author. I’ve made a living creating something from nothing. I’m also an in-demand freelance editor and writing coach and international speaker. Whew! I’ve made it. Right?
So how come I’m still be so nervous? Worried? Troubled to my very core as I forge into each “next” project? So much so, that I can’t really write deeply at first, no matter how hard I try. For weeks sometimes. The reflections on the surface of what I want to do with character and setting and plot and story structure shimmer in and out and away from me, too quickly for me to see any of it clearly yet. Argh!!!
Eh-hem.
Yes, this actually happens. Pretty much every time. The insecure, creative side of myself, no matter how successful the rest of my business becomes, is under there somewhere, suffering in silence and doubting and wondering if I’m just faking it. As if one day soon, everyone’s gonna figure out that I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing.
Sound familiar?
It’s as if you know you WANT to do. You’re dying to get see what this beautiful thing you’re creating will become once it’s done. And yet, you’re petrified to dive into the mess that all art starts out as. You’re feeling less than. You’re stumped. How could you have been crazy enough to think you could do this?
Which is all to be expected. A perfectly normal emotional reaction to the stress of beginning a new project. And an incredibly dangerous place to stall out, creatively.
Should we listen to that doubt and worry and negative self-speak each and every time you sit down to create?
Absolutely not!
When we sense the danger of being wrong, of failing, of not living up, we MUST transform that toxic energy into inspiration and eagerness and the wonder of trying something new.
Rather than focus on what others might think or say or feel about what we’ll create, we take control of our emotions. WE WRITE onward, because of what WE feel and think and want to focus on. Our fear shows us what we desire most–to share the stories in our hearts and souls and minds with others.
So, what’s stopping us?
Yes, writers are emotional critters.
But despite our fight or flight reflex, the only danger in creating something new, is if we allow our emotions to drag us under. Immobilize us with our fear of failure and criticism and rejection. To be our excuse for not acting, when we’ve been blessed with the drive and compulsion and passion that wants us to keep trying, to keep reaching out, to keep connecting with our readers’ hearts.
We must seek, not hide.
No matter how ucky we might feel at first, we must fight through the uck and NOT surrender. We must stay curious and want to keep going. More than we want to be comfortable with starting something new.
There will always be another “new” awaiting us. But “new” is a challenge, not a threat. As long as we’re artists, we will never lose the compulsion to create. So… CREATE. Just do it. Never give up. NEVER. It’s just that simple, and just that hard.
As long as you keep going, those amazing things you’ve been called to bring to life will continue to thrive in others. So let’s choose to create and to thrive, instead of surrendering to the day-to-day fear of our jobs!
Because… That’s How You Write!
How You Write 