May 21, 2012 in
MISCELLANY with
Expect to bury something. You’ll either bury your fear in faith or bury your talents in fear. — Ann Voscamp
Thanks to the large number of you who have continued checking out the blog regularly. I realize the frequency of posts has been way down, even since I returned from my sabbatical. I was not able to finish the whole book while I was gone and so most of my available time has been spent trying to get it finished up.
Fear is my constant companion. I sent a “guest post” to a very successful leadership blog today and found fear lapping around my ankles. I keep worrying that something is going to expose me as a fraud, an impostor, a joke. Sounds severe, I know, but every writer has these fears. We can succeed for a while to push them out, but they always come galloping back again, threatening to take us down. No amount of reassurance seems to quell them. That because they live in a place no one can reach — my own sense of value. Let me show you.
- I know I am a good writer
- I know I am a better writer than most
- I know I am a deeper thinker than many, and that I can capture complex ideas in fairly simple writing
- I know I love people dearly and write in a voice that is compassionate and patient
- I know I have something to say
- I know my work could help people live better lives (because I see it all the time)
My fears aren’t about any of this. My fears are about everything I know above going unrecognized, about my work not being seen by anyone in a position to help my dreams materialize. And yet ultimately I cannot write to be published, or simply to be successful, and certainly not to make money.
Speaking of money and success, I have read that the odds of writing a New York Times bestseller are 1 in 220 [divinecaroline.com]. Not bad odds, really. And yet fear is always lurking. It must be brushed back every time I sit down to write. No wonder most people never achieve anything great, and I say that not with criticism but with compassion. It’s hard. Even getting started in earnest has taken me 43 years.
Currently the manuscript that I have finished (all but two chapters) is being read and edited by two close friends and I will start sending out my proposal to publishers in two weeks after I have had a chance to incorporate the edits.
Question: How are you facing your fears? What passion do you have that will require you to brush back fear constantly? What will the world lose if you don’t face that challenge?
May 2, 2012 in
GODSTUFF with
Many Christian people don’t worship God, they worship the Bible. I assume the same is true of other sacred books such as the Koran, the Torah, and the Bagavhad Gita, although it wouldn’t HAVE to be this way. A particular set of circumstances have risen up in the US to bring about this result. But that’s another post, and one that would be really boring to most of my readers.
The point is that Christians are not to worship the Bible.
Continue Reading…
April 11, 2012 in
MISCELLANY with
Preparing to go write for the day. Yesterday went great and I got chapter 1 finished (19 pages). Great fear again today that I once again have to face somehow. The problem is that I sat down to read everything I have written so far and suddenly I’m not sure I like it. Any of it. Yesterday I thought it was amazing.
Bottom line: I can’t tell whether it’s good or not. I’m too close to it. Stare at yourself in the mirror for long enough and you won’t see your face any more — only everything that’s wrong with it.
The solution to all of this — start writing. Stop worrying.
Okay, the worrying part just comes with the territory to some degree. But I can write. I cannot control the outcome. The fate of this book will be decided by people other than me and that has always been the case. Move through doubt, through laziness, through procrastination, through anxiety and fear, through ANYTHING. JUST MOVE!
April 10, 2012 in
COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with
In my previous post I tried to clearly show that the path to peace is to embrace powerlessness. I showed that we have very little power over most of the things we care most deeply about. The question is how do we actually embrace powerlessness? The answer is as common as it is profound: by acting powerless.
Gestalt Therapy uses a technique called “acting as if.” This is where the therapist tells the client to act as if he/she is already the person he/she wishes to be. If he struggles to speak to women, he should act for a while like men act who do not struggle to speak to women. If she struggles with confidence, she should act like women who have confidence. This is what is often called, “fake it ’til you make it.”
If what I wrote yesterday is true, and we actually are powerless over a great deal of our lives, then the sooner we embrace this the better. And the way we embrace powerlessness is by acting powerless. Continue Reading…
April 9, 2012 in
MISCELLANY with
Photo from Flickr used under Creative Commons license, by epSos.de
I had not planned on blogging at all during this time when I am supposed to be finishing up my book. However, just before I sat down today to begin writing in earnest, I became aware of deep feelings of fear. And I realized that this is part of the process. I never fear writing a blog post because so little is at stake. What if a post “fails”? Then it receives fewer hits than others. But what if my book fails, into which I have greatly invested myself, along with hopes and dreams that I cannot help but connect to it? If that fails, I have lost something, or it feels that way.
If I fail to blog about this process, I think my readers will lose out a great deal. We all have hopes and dreams which we deeply desire to see become reality, but which strike deep fears into us as well. They get to the heart of our insecurities somehow. So I will, from time to time, write a few words about how I am feeling as I sit down to write for the day. Today is nothing but intense fear. What if I fail? What if I write something terrible? Worse yet, what if I write something I know to be excellent, but no one (particularly an agent or publisher) accepts it? What if — well, all my fears begin with “what if.” And where have those what-ifs gotten me so far? Exactly to where I am currently with my writing. Which of course is nowhere.
And so I sit down to write today not because I have already conquered my fears, but because I am no longer going to allow my fears to conquer me. And if learning to face my deepest fears is ultimately all that comes from this process, I emerge the victor in the end. And not only in the end, but in each and every moment where I ignore my pounding heart and the swish of blood rushing in my ears to type one more letter, one more word, one more paragraph, one more page.
Question: What dreams of yours have you been afraid to pursue? Will you step forward with me? Will you set your hand to the plow and do the work?
