1 post tagged “facing fear”
I am on a journey to write a book, my very first book. I have been
published in portions of another book, in print and online, but I have
never completed and published my own book. And it's one of those things
in life I really really want to accomplish, just for me. Oh sure, I'd
love it to be a best seller. I'd love to finish the first book and have
the publisher like it so much I receive an advance for the second one.
That is the dream. So that I could go off to Europe and do deeper
research on someplace other than the Internet.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now I'm on the journey of daily writing the book. Of daily thinking about the book. Of daily wondering about the book. And it's quite a journey, one that I'm only a quarter of the way or so into.
I have had a big struggle from adolescence onward to really show up for myself, to follow my own bliss, my own creative drum. I so love the collaborative process that instead I would usually jump on someone else's creative process in order to be included, in order to participate, feeling that I could earn my way in to being worthy by hard work and good feedback. This would be my trick with romantic relationships as well. And I'm sure you've already guessed, it didn't work out so well.
Oh yes, I did end up enjoying the creative collaborative process quite a bit, but it wasn't truly mine - so I had to constantly fight for the space to have a say, and frankly, I often pushed those who simply weren't ready to go where I knew they could go. Because I had the vision, because I knew how to get there. And in the end, though much good was done, it always ended badly. Because it wasn't really mine, and I knew that in my gut.
It's not that I haven't had my own creative projects all along, but my dedication to following my own creative drummer waxed and waned. I was not consistent. I kept thinking someone else's project was so much more legit than mine, so much more important, so in need of supporting first. I couldn't follow my own dreams first because I felt I hadn't been given a permission slip from God. That's my phrase for it that I've used for a long time.
But God doesn't send down a white photo copied form that you remember from school, he/she sends the yearning, the longing, the ideas, and when you pick up the pen and begin the journey support comes. Now I have thrown down the gauntlet to myself, the challenge - do your own thing, write your own book. Give it a total go, see what you can do.
And a fascinating thing happened, something that blew a big hole in the wall of my fear and resistance - two friends from my past have shown up and are showing support. One is my best friend from grammar school and she found me via the Internet about a year and a half ago, the other is my best friend from High School who found me via facebook about a month ago. Both have always supported the idea of me as a writer - and both love the genre I'm writing in - young adult fantasy (focused on girls).
Much of the book is plotted out, I'm now working on second drafts of the first six chapters (1 & 2 are done). It's moving, it's going, but it's still a challenging journey. There is a hole in the wall, but now I can see just how far I've got to go and it's daunting - like LOTR at the end, where it feels like Frodo and Sam will never get there. But they do. And now I just have to keep remembering that it will only happen one paragraph at a time, one page at a time, one chapter at a time and not get ahead of myself and full of worry that it won't be enough when I finally reach the end. The doing needs to be enough in itself.
