When I think about which goal is the most important to me right now, it's my writing. It means the most to me. It also scares me the most and makes me feel the most uncertain.
I think what scares me is that I won't be able to achieve the goals that I want to achieve in writing. In regards to design and gardens, I know I have the skills and the abilities to do something worthwhile. I know I am good. With writing, I don't have this certainty. Some days I write things that give me goose bumps because they are so true and resonate so fully with what I was trying to say and discover. Other days, I feel like I am unable to express anything even remotely worth saying. And I seem to have so little control over this.
Also disconcerting is the fact that writing rips me open, and at the same time it has the effect of making me live in my head. When I am writing bombs could explode around me and I wouldn't notice. I detach from the world. I live in my own world. I am not always a stable person when I write. I don't know if these are healthy things for me.
My biggest fear is being mediocre. It's that my writing will be completely inconsequential and of no value to anyone, not even myself.
I used to get the "goose bumps" experience frequently. Now I hardly ever get it. One thing I fear is that I'll never be able to achieve that magic and vitality again. I catch myself worrying that I'm too old, my memory is losing its edge, my creative well is drying up.
I think many writers struggle with similar issues. Writing is not a safe undertaking, because it calls us to embrace the unstable space where all emotions dwell, not just the pleasant ones.
What the hell is this? Will you stop beating yourself up already?
Self doubt is part of the territory of being a write, I'm afraid. Do you think I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "Who am I kidding? I don't have enough talent or skill to achieve anything meaningful with my writing." For years I avoided admitting to myself how much I really want to be a writer so that I could also avoid the failure of maybe not being good enough and able to achieve this goal.
I'm 33, Emma. I've wanted to be a writer since I was younger than 10 years old, and only now am I really admitting this to myself. Please don't give me your fatalistic bullshit.
Well, being scared is sometimes needed to make a good writer. If you get blasé and bored, or just shake stuff out of your sleeve ;) it will probably not be good writing anyway. It needs to be a little uncomfortable. Where you keep scrapping and editing and re-reading.
I am doing my journalism 3 month internship at the internet division of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia in Enschede and I have one of the toughest but fairest critics as my chief. On wednesday one of my colleagues went to her to let her read something she wrote for the newspaper's newsletter and she was SHAKING the paper with her text :) And this person has been the final editor of loads of articles for ages. Made me feel better ;) As I have been hiding in the toilet a few times awaiting my chief's feedback on articles in my first week :s
Are you talking to a professional? Because perfectionism, fear/discomfort, problem with deadlines is something you can work on. It doesn't have to have such a grip on you as it may have right now.
BTW my father likes to recount how Douglas Adams never finished on time with handing in his novels.
"While working on the radio series [of the hitchhiker's guide] Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that only got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed.[15] He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."[16] Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams eventually wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992."
I have had a story/novel in my head for three years now that I have begun and put off and begun and put off several times. I fear that because I am not EM Forster I should not bother. But the story grows and occupies my thoughts in unbusy moments.
I have been considering taking writing classes, learning to hone that skill.
Re: Conquer fearbezigebijApril 6 2010, 09:14:17 UTC
I can relate to the "if I am not EM Forster, should I even bother" sentiment. However, even if one doesn't create a masterpiece, that doesn't mean the process is any less worth the effort. And you need to start somewhere. Even EM Forster was not "EM Forster" when he got started, I suspect.
I have been participating in writing groups and workshops regularly the past year, and I am improving. Both the regular act of writing and critical feedback are essential. One of the things that has struck me is how many 50-something year olds there are who are finally mustering up the nerve to really write that book that has been playing in the back of their minds for years. I would stay, stop considering taking the writing classes and just sign up for one.
My book has actually turned trilogy, as I have figured three separate stories with interrelated characters. Naturally the middle book would focus around twins and look surprisingly like my life.....
True, no one would write at all if they had to measure up to Forster at the start......
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Also disconcerting is the fact that writing rips me open, and at the same time it has the effect of making me live in my head. When I am writing bombs could explode around me and I wouldn't notice. I detach from the world. I live in my own world. I am not always a stable person when I write. I don't know if these are healthy things for me.
My biggest fear is being mediocre. It's that my writing will be completely inconsequential and of no value to anyone, not even myself.
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I think many writers struggle with similar issues. Writing is not a safe undertaking, because it calls us to embrace the unstable space where all emotions dwell, not just the pleasant ones.
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(The comment has been removed)
Self doubt is part of the territory of being a write, I'm afraid. Do you think I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "Who am I kidding? I don't have enough talent or skill to achieve anything meaningful with my writing." For years I avoided admitting to myself how much I really want to be a writer so that I could also avoid the failure of maybe not being good enough and able to achieve this goal.
I'm 33, Emma. I've wanted to be a writer since I was younger than 10 years old, and only now am I really admitting this to myself. Please don't give me your fatalistic bullshit.
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I am doing my journalism 3 month internship at the internet division of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia in Enschede and I have one of the toughest but fairest critics as my chief. On wednesday one of my colleagues went to her to let her read something she wrote for the newspaper's newsletter and she was SHAKING the paper with her text :) And this person has been the final editor of loads of articles for ages. Made me feel better ;) As I have been hiding in the toilet a few times awaiting my chief's feedback on articles in my first week :s
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The needed deadlines thing...that's a whole other issue that is equally true, at least for me.
Thanks, and sorry for the slow response time.
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"While working on the radio series [of the hitchhiker's guide] Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that only got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed.[15] He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."[16] Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams eventually wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992."
I bet he couldn't stop editing himself either ;)
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I have been considering taking writing classes, learning to hone that skill.
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I have been participating in writing groups and workshops regularly the past year, and I am improving. Both the regular act of writing and critical feedback are essential. One of the things that has struck me is how many 50-something year olds there are who are finally mustering up the nerve to really write that book that has been playing in the back of their minds for years. I would stay, stop considering taking the writing classes and just sign up for one.
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True, no one would write at all if they had to measure up to Forster at the start......
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