Petrified Work In Progress

I'm tired of being scared. Tired of sabotaging myself and my creativity for some random stupid reason.

For years now I've complained that if only I had the time, the right software, the correct space, the support, the perfect day, the right idea...blah blah blah.

If it was an excuse I used it. I became very good at deluding myself that one day like a magical announcement from the heavens above the clouds would part, trumpets would blare and my muse whom had never bothered to show before (at least not for long enough periods of time to get me through an entire book, how dare she!) would descend from above and grace me with everything I had ever needed. She would come to me, my finished book in hand no less, smile lovingly at me and then hand me the next New York Times bestseller aka MY book and then ascend back to the clouds until I needed her again. I would then have the entire book ready in my head so I could run to my computer and pour the next great idea onto the screen.

Horse sh*t. Plain and simple.

Writing doesn't work that way. Ask any writer who has been published and they will tell you that the muse doesn't always appear. That most of the time is spent pounding out page after page (with no muse in sight). Pages that will eventually get rewritten, sometimes so much so that the original version is no longer recognizable. The idea that writing comes easily to all writers is wrong. But as a beginning writer it was an idea that I believed for a very long time.

The truth is that I've been scared. Scared that people wouldn't like my idea. Scared that the story wouldn't make sense. Scared I couldn't write. Scared I couldn't get it published (my biggest fear so far, but wait I'm sure I'll find others). Just flat out petrified. And every time I sat down to write, that fear would waltz straight to the front of my brain and that nanosecond of positive thoughts and ideas would slink away.

Just poof.

Gone.

Suddenly that great opening line wasn't so great anymore. The character I loved moments ago suddenly seemed to be lacking something and I would sit sadly looking at the page as my fears eroded any joy in what I wanted to do.

My light bulb moment came though when I read a blog entry from my favorite author Laurell K. Hamilton. In it she gave great tips about writing but one thing struck me. In fact if it had been a 2x4 I might now be dead. She wrote that writer's block was just a lack of self confidence.

I sat speechless for several seconds as I took that little piece of advice in. A lack of self confidence? Me?! No way! I had always been able to discuss my opinions and ideas, sometimes more than those around me wished, so how could I have self confidence issues?

But as I sat there digesting what she had wrote I realized it was true. All my fears and doubts were just me dealing with my own issues about writing. I had been shooting myself in the foot for years and didn't realize it.

So I've vowed to purposely write things that scare me, make me uncomfortable, things that set me so far outside my comfort zone that my inner voice sits whimpering in the corner. Because I'm tired of stifling my creativity (knowingly or unknowingly). And I'm really tired of lacking self confidence....