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Posts tagged ‘fear’

Mar 12

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How your book is your teacher

As a business owner, I often meet other business owners or people who want to start a business. I’ll never forget one lady who told me she wanted to start a business but, over the years when I’d ask her how her business was going, she’d always reply that she was “researching” and “getting ready to start it soon.”

While I’m sure she learned a lot about her field, she never did start her business. She was always getting ready. A friend of mine calls this the “paper-clip-arranging” syndrome. It’s a syndrome that affects writers and other artists as well.

What is the real problem? FEAR. Read more

Sep 2

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Conquering your writing fears: what you focus on expands

I’ve never ridden a motorcycle in my life. Never even been on one. So when my hubby recently suggested we take a motorcycle class, I had no frame of reference. I didn’t even know he’d owned one when he was younger and living in Southern California. I’m not sure what prompted his sudden need for speed, but we talked about it and decided to take the two-day safety course to see if we could pass the test (back in his early riding days there were no classes, nor tests). I wanted to take the class to see if I even enjoyed riding.

Being a type A, my hubby arranged for us to have a private class and to have both days collapsed into one (to save time, of course, since we are busy business owners). We passed the written test in the morning. No problem. Then from 12:30pm to 7:30pm we went through two days of riding instruction. Keep in mind I’ve never ridden. Keep in mind I didn’t know where the brakes or clutch were or what a choke was. (Other than this is what I wanted to do to my husband by six o’clock that evening). Read more

Aug 9

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Naming your fear is the first step to conquering it

Different cultures throughout time have taught us that naming things gives us power over them.  At the recent Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference, New York Times best-selling author, Bob Mayer, spoke on the last day about fear. He started his talk with a quote from Stephen King:

“I’m convinced fear is at the root of most bad writing.”

I’ve taken Mayer’s Write It Forward online class and the first thing he does is have us name our fear. I couldn’t do it. For years, I’ve worked hard on conquering my fears and felt as if I’d pretty much conquered them all (even my extreme fear of snakes). I know all about the concept of “going fearward” and often recommend it to my clients. So when Mayer suggested I probably hadn’t been faced with my current fear yet, I thought, “Uh, huh. Right.”

But there was something wrong in my writing life. I’d been working on my next book and procrastinating terribly but not understanding why. I thought maybe my subconscious was trying to work something out with the plot. But that wasn’t it. Read more