Fear and Creativity

I can’t believe it has been 16 days since I last wrote…it was going so well for a while. What happened?

About 2 weeks ago, I met a wonderful and inspiring woman as part of a work/networking line of experimentation. For whatever reason, I confessed to this woman my deepest dream of writing a book and quickly described the premise to her. I don’t know what I expected by confessing…but for sure I did not expect her response. She thought the idea was strong and that I should talk to her agent.

What?! An agent? You mean, I could get this book published one day? Yes? Wow. Wow…

And the weekend was taken up with the excitement of this new way of thinking. To date the premise of the book only lives in a short story I wrote ten years ago. But that weekend, I had an outline. But not a word on a page. And then I thought – well what if the agent doesn’t like it? What if the idea is great and the execution is crap? What if this book does not get published? Fear. Doubt. Hesitation.

I kept hearing the woices of the characters and their need to be committed to the page…and yet, I still didn’t write. Fear of judgment. Fear of backlash. Fear. And then the voices asked me, wouldn’t it be ok if the only thing that happened with this book was that it got written. Wouldn’t it be OK if the book wasn’t made into a movie. And I thought – yes!

The only reason I want to write this book is to create! Once it is out in the world, I can’t protect it…it will be what it is. This book is a “child” for me. WIth this sense, I re-examined my fear and saw it shrink. Saw that it did not matter.

And so, with the fear under management, I look forward to the long weekend and writing.